Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have mild asthma, a host of other "mild" (aka. non-life threating) seasonal allergies and oral antihistamines are becoming less effective as I get older. I will be talking to my doctor about this medication. I'm interested in your experience if you don't mind sharing more? Any improvements to contact allergies?
I'm not positive if I have any contact allergies, though I do have a lifelong tendency for eczema, which has improved a lot on Xolair. For background: I actually went on Xolair to treat eczema, which is an off-label use, but my IgE antibodies were high enough thanks to 5000 environmental allergies (mold, pollen, dust, more dust...) that they got my insurance to approve it under standard criteria. I also have asthma,…
I tried allergy immunotherapy (aka. "allergy shots") but it was very rough and it aggravated blood pressure issues and gave me joint pains, so I opted to discontinue after the second attempt.
On hydroxyzine, I've taken cetirizine (2nd gen, metabolite of hydroxyzine) in the past. 1st gen antihistamines usually knock me out. I'm now on Fexofenadine (Allegra, Telfast) which is mostly covered by my insurance and works pretty good still.
One crazy thing for eczema sufferers, if you get bad eczema on neck and arms during summer don't assume you have a heat rash, patch test your sun screen. I now use zinc based sun screen after a dermatologist patch test identified I was allergic too Oxybenzone's. Never has a clue and I live in a country with very high UV levels.