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.