Now is the time to get your act together if your allergies kick up in March – therapies started before the season work much better than those begun in the midst of the sniffling.  If your allergies seem worse in recent years, global warming may play a role, since ragweed has a longer growing season and there are studies that show that we’re growing more pollen per plant in relatively warmer temperatures.  For the natural approach to allergies, try saline nasal spray or supplements like butterbur, stinging nettles, and quercetin.  Quercetin is in the vitamin C family, and works best when taken along with vitamin C before the season begins.  Many people find relief using combination products like Aller-7 and Country Life’s Aller-Max, which combines quercetin with histamine-blocking ingredients.  Another low-impact therapy is a little water gadget called the Neti Pot, recently demonstrated on The Oprah Winfrey Show, which has been used for thousands of years to moisten and clear irritants out of the nasal passages.
If you have ‘a cold’ for four months at a time or you always get headaches or congestion at a certain time of the year, you may have allergies.  Remember that the best drugstore meds may be behind the counter, because new legislation regarding pseudoephredine limits the amount you can buy at any one time.  Allergists recommend Claritin-D or Allegra-type non-sedating drugs for over-the-counter relief, but recommend prescription nose sprays like Flonase or Nasonex for more localized treatment.  These nose sprays are a drug company’s dream because they work best if you use them year-round, but they work great, with the least side effects, for many patients.
The next step is immunotherapy, more commonly referred to as “allergy shots,” where you are gradually desensitized to allergens through a series of injections.    This is the most effective approach for many, but also the most time-consuming and expensive.  Instead of taking medication on a daily or seasonal basis, you’re getting to the root of the problem by gradually increasing exposure.   An often-overlooked treatment is immunotherapy for insect stings.  People who are allergic to stings could stop worrying about a life-threatening reaction if they would get the shots desensitizing them to this deadly allergy.