Seasonal allergies: Medications to try first

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
Seasonal allergies: Medications to try first]

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[Text on screen: Rekha Raveendran, MD
Division Director, Allergy/Immunology
Ohio State Wexner Medical Center]

Rekha Raveendran, MD: When someone's experiencing seasonal allergies, something they can do is go to a drugstore or their local pharmacy, and there's a plethora of allergy options that are available. So if they've never tried anything, oral antihistamines is probably a good place to start. Those can be things like Claritin or Zyrtec or Allegra. We recommend doing 24-hour antihistamines rather than the sedating short-acting ones like Benadryl because they work longer. They allow you to not be sedated and to function normally throughout the day and can provide a large majority of patients good relief from their symptoms.

Some of the nasal spray options that are over the counter are nasal corticosteroids. So common ones could be Flonase, Nasacort, Nasonex, and those options are available at most pharmacies. You can also do a nasal antihistamine. So something like Astepro would be a good option. Then there are nasal saline rinses, which are just saline that you can use, things like neti pots or rinse kits where you can use a squirt bottle that kind of flushes out the nasal passages.

[Text on screen: The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center
For more information, visit: wexnermedical.osu.edu/allergy]

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