Allergies
 

What a horrible week.

Since Wednesday I have been suffering from terrible allergies, and it has taken a serious toll on my efforts to build up my mileage base. Without the ability to take sufficient air into my lungs I don't feel comfortable riding too far from home. I've also had a hacking cough and headaches; not a pleasant week.

This morning I finally had enough and set out on what was supposed to be a 30-mile ride. But after 7.5 miles I was so out of breath I could barely make it up the small inclines. I turned around and limped home, walking the bike up the big hills.

When I got home I tried to crash but I can't stop coughing, so sleeping is out of the question. :rolleyes:

This season my allergies are worse than ever before. It seems none of the usual meds work anymore. Claritin, Zirtec, Allegra...nothing.

OK, rant over. :)

You're not alone in that. This last week has been the worst for allergies here that I can remember.

*pedal pedal pedal sneeze pedal*

You may want to try Singulair, helps with seasonal allergies and excercise induced asthma should you happen to have both. Unlike claritin, zyrtec etc. it is not an antihistamine but a leukotriene inhibitor so it really helps with the coughing, bronchial sensitivity etc.

Make sure you don't have a sinus infection (you can have one without the presence of..uh..greenness :p) or upper respiratory infection (the coughing makes me wonder about that). I battled that crap for years thinking it was just allergies (and even having doctors who wouldn't look any deeper than "here take this allergy pill" even after being told I'd taken them and they didn't work.)and it amazes me how many people just suffer through it. There's a guy I work with who sounds like he has his fingers shoved up his nose, his eyes always have that glazed sick look. But he says 'Oh it's just sinus'. No no! There's always a reason and it can be fixed! My ENT told me the only way to REALLY tell if you have a sinus infection is by getting an xray, so if it's worth it to you, if making you have to live around it, go to an ENT and have it done just to be sure!! Ever had an allergy test?

(edit) When my lungs weren't feeling so great but there was no infection, my ENT and allergists gave me Singulair too. Seemed to do the trick!

Natophelia is right but a plain sinus xray can still miss chronic sinusitis almost 60 percent of the time. Get a cat scan of the sinuses if your health plan will allow it. Gets it 98.5 percent of the time.

OMG..CB...I wish I could show you my CAT scans I had done before surgery. All the air passages/sinuses showed up white! Showed them to the main doc who'd been poking useless allergy pills down my throat all my life and her jaw dropped. All she could say was "This is you?? This is YOU?" I don't know how many time she repeated that before she had to leave the room. I wish I had a picture of that face...

Singulair is alright, if it's purely an allergy problem you may want to try Flonase. I've tried all the pills but it's a spray that seems to do the trick for me.

Pudge,
have you been riding during periods of high ozone? Do a google using 'ozone philadelphia' if you haven't been tracking ozone levels. Btw, ozone turns into hydrogen peroxide in your lungs. Burns 'em.

Mightypudge, i feel your pain. I have 365 days a year allergies. I went to an allergy test last summer, and u won't believe how many things in nature i'm allergic too that turned positive. To list a few: oak,maple,birch,2 more i can't remember, pollen, dust mites, peach, apple, pear, nectarine, plum (these fruits i found from eating them and getting crazy hives), cats, horses, oyster,shrimp...that's most of the general stuff that's is found in many places. I was told to go for allergy needles ( once a month for 15 months...$200 a shot) i don't think i could afford that since i'm a university student...

Maybe you should go for an allergy test, and see what they say and see what you test positive for! Also, you say you have coughs and headaches...is that really allergies? Do you sneeze as well? Maybe you could have bronchitis (the symptoms are brutal coughing) or a bad case of the flu.

Just curious, doesn't your national health plan cover these or are they considered "elective" which is why you are expected to front the cost?

Wow..I have Blue Cross Blue Shield and they pay every cent of allergy shots. The only thing I have to pay for is the $15 copay when i go for a three month check up. But even without the insurance the shot's only like $40??? I think they're finally kicking in after 15 months (twice a week for 8 months, once a week since).

oooh..just saw that you're in Canada, Aquaria. Different ball of wax, huh...

Another malady which goes hand in hand with allergies is asthma. I was 45 when a doctor finally diagnosed that I have mild ashtma, and it is definitely related to allergies. It took some very careful listening with a stethoscope to pick up a very slight wheeze at the end of a breath. The asthma usually affects me only during allergy season, although I never use the inhaler except as a precaution when I ski in very cold weather. The main effect is to make my aerobic performace very unpredictable, with really different heart rates for the same level of effort, increasing by about 13-15 bpm when I am feeling an attack. If you find yourself unable to breath, and it turns out to be mild asthma, you can just turn down the jets a bit and let the episode pass.

On another note, most of the new allergy medications are not selected for effectiveness, but rather for having long chain chemicals which do not enter your brain as readily to cause drowsiness. The old standbys, especially triprolidine (actifed), are more effective, but will leave you drowsy.

A second vote for Flonase. I've tried all the pills (claritin, allegra, zyrtec, all the generic stuff) and it's the only thing that works consistently for me.

The sprays don't seem to do anything for me, but I take them to scare away the evil polyps. Zyrtec's my drug of choice, but hopefully I can get to one allergy shot a month or less with no stinky pills! At least Flonase smells like flowers :D

I'll trade all of you!!!

I have to use PUMICORT. It's a steroid.

Does a great job on the allergies/asthma but...

Steroids can/do cause catatracs....20/400 in less than a year.

God bless eye surgery! I now have a plastic lens in my right eye.

One longass year.

No it doesn't, i don't think. I live in Canada and there is the health thing called OHIP. They don't cover allergy shots.

Cataracts seriously suck...my dad owns opticals here and that disease makes your eyes go worse and worse...

The sprays also contain steroids in them.