!Allergy!
 

I've been on allergy medication for a month now, and the prescription has 4 refills. I don't think I've ever taken any medication this long, and the scary part is that I forgot to take it yesterday, and today my throat is already itching like hell. I'm thinking it hasn't even gotten ANY better. :( Is it normal to be on allergy medication for 4 months?!

Gulp. sorry to say, I'm on mine for life.

Yes its normal for that long, at least during Allergy season. But if you have an Allergy, you pretty much have it forever.

What does not kill you only makes you stronger.

Actually, I've never had an allergy before. This one seems pretty bad though. It's identical to my mother's allergy problems.

My wife's allergist told her that she could take pills indefinitely, or she could try shots, which had a chance of ubilding up a permanent resistance. She went with the shots for several years but is now off the shots and having no trouble.

As you age, you also can develop new allergies or become more sensitive. I suppose you could also grow out of them, but I've not heard many people doing that. I had a beloved kitty as a kid, and I could never do that now- Within an hour, I would itch, my throat would swell up and I could get no oxygen.

When we lived in the south, the cedar pollen (Cedar fever) would kick my spouse's butt. Not at first, it took like 2 years of living there, then when the trees would pop he would be miserable for weeks. For some reason that never got to me. With the plant life up north here, I am sniveling and he's not too bad.

When I was little, around age 5, I was allergic to all dairy products, most types of wheat and wheat products, chocolate, mustard seeds, 56 different types of grass/pollen/ragweed, animal dander, and dust. Ingestion of even a tablespoon or 5 minutes around the airborne stuff would trigger a massive asthma attack, occasionally only treatable by a shot of adrenaline and albuterol in a nebulizer for 15 minutes.

Needless to say, every meal was an adventure.

After many years of weekly "desensitization" shots, I am now able to eat anything I want. My only issues now are hayfever and cat fur. Taking a sudafed clears it right up, tho.

So you can grow out of allergies.

If your allergy is to pollen then you are affected by the lack of cold winters. I've gone from intermittent allergy medication to full-time in the past two years. I've also spoken with other people who never had allergies before and who are developing symptoms.

At least pollen is natural. I'm concerned about the whittling away of the clean air act and what that will mean for real pollutants in the air.

Has anyone ever measured the economic effects of air pollution (medicine, ER visits, lost workdays, people staying indoors and not shopping, etc) to balance the "If we ease up on pollution regulations we can stimulate the economy" rationale?

Yes, it turns out that before pollution people lived to age 40 and now they live to 75.

Increasingly, people suffer from allergies due to their indoor environments. Our bedroom is in the basement of our house, and I am virtually certain that there is enough foundation seepage behind the walls that, over time, we most likely have mold infestation. I have found that my wife and I have both had reduced symptoms since installing a HEPA filter in our bedroom.

Well isnt there the theory that if you are exposed as a babe to various irritants, critters, hay, dust, etc. you develop tolerance. We're just too clean and tidy these days. Maybe we need to camp more as infants, eat dirt, sleep with fur.

Everything that doesn't kill you, makes you stronger?

I don't believe that theory, if even out there, my dad grew up on a farm and suffers from some pretty bad hay fever. Both me and my brother have hay fever to some extent to and we both grew up on a farm. Still a good theory and I'd bet there actually is some credence to it.

I have the best anti-allergy medicine meds in the world:
my pack of Camels.
Smoking somehow acts as an anti-histamine. I don't claim to know why, though my guess is that it somehow has to do with me not being able to taste and smell as well, but it does work. No smoke == allergies bad. Smoke == allergies not bad.
Go figure.