antinomy and antihistamines

[ewx]

antinomy mentioned something on Thursday evening about antihistamines which I'd not appreciated until now - that they can take several days to build up to full effectiveness. This bubbled back to the surface this morning and I had a quick look through the instruction leaflets that come with three different ones (Piriton, Benadryl Plus and the Boots version of Loratadine). None of them tell you this. Annoying, as it means that (unless you happen to have a conversation with a relevant expert) you end up thinking that they just don't work very well on you and switch to a different pill before they've had a proper chance to do any good.

Comments

[gerald_duck]

Personally, I don't bother with antihistamines at all. Instead, I use Flixonase (fluticasone propionate), which is a steroid nasal spray. For some reason I find it works much better than Beconase, its more common sibling.

You can get it over the counter from a pharmacist nowadays, but it's much cheaper to get a prescription.

I've been sitting in a London park for most of today (OK, yesterday, now), with no hint of trouble.