I use Flonase almost everyday, all year round (the steroid nasal spray). I recently ran out of it about a month ago and since I am in the process of switching PCPs, I decided to wait until I go for my physical. Bad decision. About 2 weeks ago, I started incessantly sneezing and feeling achy. Then the headache came. Now, I don't get headaches, even with sinus infections. I started the saline rinse and Claritin, enough to make me feel OK when I went nordic skiing last weekend, but by Monday I felt horrible. I ended up going to the walk in clinic at CVS, where she took a look up my nose and sighed... got my Flonase and 10 days of Bactrim, as she really felt it had developed into a bacterial sinus infection.
The moral is: don't run out of my Flonase! My symptoms started just when I was hearing reports on the news about early allergy symptoms because of the warm winter. I wanted to stop taking this because of my osteoporosis, but my doctor felt for such a small amount going into my nasal passages, it's not worth my suffering. In a way, he was right. Once my allergies start, I leave myself open to asthma, bronchitis, sinus infections and all kinds of other bad stuff. While I usually can stop taking it for a few months of the year, now is not the time.