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(4) drug regimens
Nov. 4th, 2010 02:58 pmIt is not too strong a statement to say that when I was younger, allergies incapacitated me for a month or so every year, and made my life highly unpleasant for quite a lot of the rest of it. In spring especially, I'd wander the world in a swollen-eyed, hive-ridden, snotty-and-sneezy, blisteringly beheadached daze, barely able to function and an object of disgust and annoyance to the people around me. I tried with the allergy shots for a while, and remind me to tell you one day why I stopped getting them ( * ), but they didn't do me much good, and Benadryl did its job beautifully but wrecked (and still wrecks) me almost as badly in a different way, so for years I just resigned myself to rue, despair, and misery.
And then came Allegra and Claritin. Holy shit, the amazing difference they made. Suddenly I could open my eyes all the way! Suddenly I could breathe, suddenly my cheekbones stopped hurting, suddenly I could bend over without my brains trying to leak out of my eye sockets. It was astonishing! And even my dermographism was suddenly under control! And they didn't even render me comatose, like Benadryl does, and though there were times when coma was preferable to extreme misery, after Allegra and Claritin I didn't have to make that choice.
It was like a miracle or something. A freaking miracle of pharmacy, right in the palm of my hand.
And it got even better when Claritin went over the counter, because then I didn't even need a prescription! I could just walk into CVS and there they were, right on the shelf, and I haven't forgotten how desperate I was for relief, back in the dark ages, and what that relief felt like when it came. Sometimes there are still days when I have to up the ante a little -- thank you Nasonex and Flonase! Thank you Tylenol Sinus! -- but for the most part it's enough. And it's good.
And then came Allegra and Claritin. Holy shit, the amazing difference they made. Suddenly I could open my eyes all the way! Suddenly I could breathe, suddenly my cheekbones stopped hurting, suddenly I could bend over without my brains trying to leak out of my eye sockets. It was astonishing! And even my dermographism was suddenly under control! And they didn't even render me comatose, like Benadryl does, and though there were times when coma was preferable to extreme misery, after Allegra and Claritin I didn't have to make that choice.
It was like a miracle or something. A freaking miracle of pharmacy, right in the palm of my hand.
And it got even better when Claritin went over the counter, because then I didn't even need a prescription! I could just walk into CVS and there they were, right on the shelf, and I haven't forgotten how desperate I was for relief, back in the dark ages, and what that relief felt like when it came. Sometimes there are still days when I have to up the ante a little -- thank you Nasonex and Flonase! Thank you Tylenol Sinus! -- but for the most part it's enough. And it's good.
