Allergy season is still ongoing. Prepare yourself and your children. There are many non-drowsy alleergy medications available.
Use medication the right way — and talk to your doctor if it’s not working. When it comes to taking a medication to relieve symptoms, like the itchy eyes or sneezing of allergies, we tend to think that we should take it when we have the symptoms, and not take it when we don’t. But it turns out that allergy medications work best when you take them consistently — and can take a while to kick in. So while it’s understandable that you would want to hold off on medications until things get bad, and skip them on good days, your child will actually do better if you get them started at the first sniffle — and continue until allergy season is over (check with your doctor as to when you should stop).The medications we most commonly use for allergies include antihistamines taken by mouth, nasal sprays to help stuffiness and sneezing, and eye drops to help itchy eyes. These days, most of these medications are available without a prescription, so it may not occur to families to call their doctor when allergy season hits; they just head to the pharmacy. If what you buy is working, great. But if not, give your doctor a call — because sometimes changing to a different medication or dose, or using it a bit differently, can make all the difference. Your doctor can also be sure that there isn’t something else besides allergies going on.