allergy shots?

[Eden]

It took me until my 30's to realize that I had seasonal allergies... I am sensitive to several things - a couple of tree pollens, grass pollen, dust mites and cats, but really only have symptoms when the trees are blooming, so I'm only really bad for a few weeks out of the year usually.

I'm with Indy - I use allegra and singulair and at the worst times for me I use a nasal spray (flonase) and it works quite well. One of the docs I work with told me singulair does a good job with allergies (but not so much for asthma, which it was actually developed for....) - but only when combined with an anithistimine, so don't bother taking it alone.

[badgercat]

I did allergy shots for about 5 years, starting with once a week when I was 10, and tapering off to once a month by the time I was 15. I used to live in the Midwest, and had horrible allergies in autumn--ragweed season was complete misery for me, to the point that no matter what drugs I took (for a while I was on a twice-daily oral antihistamine PLUS a daily nasal spray), my nose basically didn't function...which made getting the nasal spray up in my sinuses an interesting chore.

Were the shots a PITA? Of course. Who wants to get shot up with stuff that makes your arm swell and itch once a week? But I'd ABSOLUTELY do it again. I was able to stop using prescription allergy meds many years ago and while I still sneezed a bit more in autumn, I only felt the need to pop an over-the-counter Claritin maybe a handful of times over the course of my entire allergy season. Unfortunately, I have problems in the spring now instead of the fall, but I moved to a completely different region (desert Southwest) and I'm sure there are just different plants to deal with here that I probably wasn't even tested for let alone given shots for. My current issues I'm also able to control with an occasional pill.

[Pax]

I'm 1.5 years into my shots and they have made a HUGE difference in my quality of life. Without them I wouldn't be able to keep my job (I'm big time allergic to paper mold and I work in an old library).

That said, they are a huge pain in the rear.

[makbike]

I've been taking allergy shots for over 15 years now (once a week). I now only have very minor flaw ups in the spring and fall. I typically have one bad sinus infection each year (beat the constant one I keep for years). I also take Allegra and Singulaire on a daily basis as well as using two inhalers for my asthma.

[ginny]

yes, everything I have read and heard here confirms what the doc said: immunotherapy works! I looked into the insurance thing, and my health care just isn't what it was at the university... alas, I think I'll have to wait... thanks for the input and thoughts, all!

[Melalvai]

Consider allergy drops too. I managed to control my allergies for a few years with Allegra, but I could tell it was getting less effective, and finally went to an allergist to talk about shots. He talked me into doing drops.

They are the same sort of thing as shots, only delivered in the form of drops under your tongue. You hold the drops in your mouth for two minutes every morning and it is absorbed into the floor of your mouth.

Insurance doesn't pay for it because it's considered experimental, though it's been used in Europe as long as we've used shots. For me shots would come with a co-pay and so drops were only slightly more expensive ($40/mth).

As far as whether it works, he told me in his experience it is more effective in his patients than shots (and he uses them himself). I only just started them this year but it seems to help. When the juniper was in bloom it got bad and I took Allegra for a couple weeks. Otherwise I've been doing fine without Allegra.

[ginny]

good idea regarding the drops: I could afford $40/mo, but with a $500 copay and then only 80% of the shots covered and where does the office visit cost fall into the whole thing??? Good grief! I will ask about the drops...