For those who have chosen to medicate...

[Jenelle]

Which daily allergy medicine does your child take? And why do you feel comfortable with it?

My ds was coughing so much at night, and waking up so miserably full of snot and sneezing every morning so much... that I finally gave in, and started giving him the OTC loratadine (Claritin) syrup DAILY.

That was about a year ago, and it made such a difference in his quality of life, with no obvious side effects.

But now, it doesn't seem to be working as well. I also started to give it to my ds2 for the last couple weeks because his poor nose was just running and running. It seems to maybe help a little -- but definitely not completely.

So I am thinking of asking their pediatrician if we should try a different allergy med. and I wanted to check with other mamas here and see what you feel good about, or what you've had bad experiences with.

TIA!

[LauraLoo]

You might want to check out this thread:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...ghlight=Zyrtec

[WC_hapamama]

We're using Nasonex and Singulair for seasonal allergies with reasonably good results. Allergy shots would be better in the long run in our case, but neither Jason or I want to deal with that.

[cat19]

We use Zyrtec, and will do allergy shots once DS#2 is old enough.

However, we found this spring that DS#2 had coughs that seem related to pollen in the air but that were mainly nighttime coughs, with some noisy breathing during the day--and discovered he had the beginnings of asthma. Antihistamines didn't help much. We needed asthma meds.

So now we also use occasional Albuterol and Pulmicort, and we're learning to tell the difference between allergies that are just causing runny nose and allergic asthma that is messing with his airways.

[txtarheel]

Claritin didn't work at all for DS, so they likely don't experience symptoms the same way. We have the best results with benadryl. The only downside is that it doesn't last very long, so it won't get him through the night without redosing if he's had a bad reaction.

Two days of zyrtec resulted in such bizarre behavioral problems that I refuse to give him that - I do recommend checking out the thread linked to above.

[Alyantavid]

Claritin didn't work at all for us.

My oldest takes Singulair every morning and my youngest takes Zyrtec at night. When they went from constant sickness, coughing and running noses after a few doses, we've kept it up.

[Jenelle]

Thanks everybody for the responses. I did read the Zyrtec thread, and it makes me leery of that! Especially since ds1 gets kind of "crazy" from certain foods... it seems to me he would be one of the ones who gets the "crazy" reaction. Don't need anything else affecting his attention span, thank you very much.

He does have albuterol for his asthma, which is very occasional -- especially when his allergies are controlled by the Claritin. Mostly we just have to use it when he is around cats. But here lately, like I said... it seems that the Claritin isn't doing as well, so we have had to use the inhaler more often (maybe 1 puff once or twice a day for the last couple weeks).

We also have a prescription for Flovent, which is to be given twice daily as needed, but I have a real problem breaking out the steroid inhaler unless he is having serious coughing/breathing problems.

I had been buying the Target brand loratadine syrup for them, but for the first time last night I got the name brand Claritin. We will see if it helps any more with their symptoms before calling the pedi.

Thanks again!

[maggieb]

My 11 year old is on allergy shots. She takes Singulair and Nasonex daily with an occasional Zyrtec and/or Bendaryl if her symptoms are bad. I have not noticed any adverse or strange reactions to the meds. They have helped tremendously. We have not had any sinus infections since March, where before we started this she would have several infections thru out the year and her nose was always runny. She even reports to feeling better and she that she can actually smell and taste things now.