There are two points of the year where I get allergies: Around April, where the trees bloom and throw of their pollen, and August, which is ragweek season, I believe. The ones in April have traditionally been worse for me; I get the usual symptoms of runny nose, sneezing and watery eyes, pollen essentially renders me a zombie. It gets bad in the late summer, but while the medications I have gotten ever since I was a child usually didn't work in the spring, oftentimes they take care of the ragweed.
This year has been, according to the media, The Worst Allergy Season In The History Of Planet Earth. I don't think I have an objective perspective on it because allergy season has always been shitty for me. But I didn't think this spring's allergy season was any worse than any other year. It may not be the right way to gauge how bad allergies are, but that one day when I was scoring tests early and my nose was producing snot the whole time in early June 2013 makes me think that last year was The Worst Allergy Season In The History Of Planet Earth.
However, I am mentally keeping track of the fall season. I saw a tease on the news that ragweed season may be the worst it's ever been, and I thought, yeah right, I don't feel anything. But starting on, say, Thursday, my nose has been alternately stuffy and running, and the faucet has been turned on ever since. Right now it's bad, very bad. I'm going through so many tissues that I emptied the box of the co-worker in the next cubicle. I've been stacking used tissues of the box on my nightstand, something I usually do in the spring, and I've been throwing tissues by the half-dozen away into the trash can in the kitchen. As I type this at a Caribou coffee on a Sunday afternoon I have two Kleenexes folded up -- one I believe is fully used and one I think has a pocket within the folds big enough for me to stick my nose in and blow.
From what I remember late-summer allergies are less bad and last shorter than what I have to suffer through in the spring. I'm not saying my ragweed reactions last only a week, but right now I feel like crap and I don't remember ever feeling so this time of year. Maybe this is the Worst Ragweed Season In The History Of Planet Earth after all.
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When I was young I used to annually get and drink these two generic-looking bottles of medicine for allergy season. One of them was purple liquid, and on the daisywheel-printed label it said it was for congestion. I liked the taste of that very much, don't know why. The other one, which I hated to the point of fear, was red liquid and was for my cough. I think the taste at the time was too bitter for me to withstand. I think I had fights with Grandmother and my parents over having to take these two damn things every year. My brother didn't have to, and my sister probably didn't, at least not regularly like I, and I thought that was unfair, and I was very vocal about voicing this unfairness. Still is, but I guess I can blame my parents for passing down the wrong genes when they conceived me.
I've graduated from the purple and red stuff a long time ago, probably before the pharmacy I got the medicine from graduated from daisywheel printers. In its place, once I started thinking for myself in high school, became over-the-counter pills. And they didn't work. Well, it didn't work at all for the pollen for some reason, but it was OK for the ragweed, enough for me to buy every year to try and combat my allergies in August.
Nevertheless I am always looking for a better way, if not something that would eliminate my allergies for good. A couple times over the years I've been told by doctors in visits that I could get a shot, but for some reason it's not advisable for me to get one, a response that leaves me puzzled as I leave the office and really pisses me off in times like this, when my nose is running so much I can't do anything else. So in the spring of 2012 I get this prescription for Nasonex, which was advertised on TV by an animated bee voiced by Antonia Banderas. And it worked wonders. That nasal spray built up a wall around my sinuses, and I barely needed to blow my nose once every day of that allergy season. It was manna from heaven.
One of the unfortunate consequences of working full-time this year was not having the time to go see the doctor to get more Nasonex. Instead I tried going to Target's MinuteClinic and hoping I could get one from a Nurse Practitioner. But the NP said there is a similar medication that's now available OTC, Nasacort. It would save me money for the drugs, let alone the co-pay to see her.
Unfortunately I've tried it and it doesn't work. It didn't really relieve my symptoms back in the spring/early summer, and they definitely are not working at all now. I keep using it because I know I'll be sneezing and blowing if I do nothing. But I got so tired of dealing with it Sunday afternoon that I caved and bought some Claritin (with, luckily, a $3 off coupon). The first pill I took tonight (which I did not know was dissolvable, like I'm a kid) may have knocked me out for an hour, but when I woke up it kind of worked. I had to blow my nose a few times, but my nose isn't gushing mucus, and even though I've got one mother of a headache, my head isn't throbbing so much I want to crawl into bed and die. Maybe it's not the pill so much as the quick rainstorm that washed the ragweed to the ground, but right now I think buying Claritin was a good idea.
I just want to be fucking done with this season, you know?
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