Category: Health

Corn Free Asthma Treatment

What’s corny about asthma inhalers?

The propellant in modern HFA puffer-style inhalers almost always contains ethanol from corn.

There are several steroid or combination steroid-and-topical-anti inflammatory diskus inhalers that don’t use a propellant at all, but rather contain dry powder that you use the power of your inhaled breath to pull into yoyur lungs. Some preventative diskus inhalers are: Advair Diskus, Asmanex, and Flovent Diskus.

Note that so far all diskus inhalers contain lactose, so the severely dairy allergic are out of luck here.

However steroid inhalers are only useful for preventing an asthma attack.. they won’t treat one that is already happening.

What do I do if I’m already having an attack?

Your best bet would be the Ventolin brand HFA inhaler. It contains contains albuterol sulfate, but the propellant is not corn ethanol, it’s tetrafluoroethane (HFA 134a). The Xopenex HFA inhaler also uses this propellant but contains other exipients such as oleic acid and dehydrated alcohol which is most likely from corn. Ventolin has no other ingredients. I use the Ventolin HFA and sometimes I react to it just a little, so I don’t think it’s entirely corn free, but so far the benefit has outweighed the negative outcomes. Other inhalers including the popular ProAir HFA made my throat close.

Update March 2016: I’ve just discovered that ProAir is now making a non propellant albuterol inhaler that works like the steroid inhalers mentioned above. The only ingredients are the albuterol and lactose: ProAir Respiclick

If you can’t tolerate that, your best option is to get a nebulizer, which is a device that does the propelling for you. Then you just put the powdered drug which can be compounded corn free into the chamber and get the medication delivered. (Some nebulizer powders may be corn free off-the-shelf, check inactive ingredients.) There are pocket nebulizers for carrying with you however they are still somewhat bulky.

Update on Compounding Xyzal and Zyrtec

Hi all, I’ve been quiet, busily getting the last of the summer/early fall produced preserved while I can, but I just wanted to update you with the compounded antihistamine situation.

So Xyzal and Zyrtec *can* be compounded, BUT the sourcing is turning out to be more complicated than I want it to be. My pharmacist, after telling me that he could get me Xyzal in a 25mg quantity from a reseller, emailed me yesterday to tell me that it was backordered and not available at this time, but “could be in the future.”

I DO know that it is possible to get these drugs from PCCA, the problem is getting it in reasonable quantities. If you have a pharmacist that is able to get you either Xyzal or Zyrtec in reasonable quantities and compound them into corn-free capsules for you, and they can either fill a script with custom filler and ship to Washington state, or can repackage and resell to a pharmacy in Washington state, please let me know, because I’d really like to get a corn free Xyzal or Zyrtec.

Eating Seasonally: Prepare for Flu Season now!

Elderberries are in season on the Pacific NW and may be in your area as well! If, like me, you’re too sensitive to traces and cross contamination to tolerate any of the prepackaged elderberry syrups or prepackaged dried elderberries, now is the time to stock up on the wild foraged stuff and freeze or dehydrate to make into syrup for the flu season. Not familiar with elderberries and why I’d want them for the winter?

Where to Get Them

What we have growing wild and native in the area is blue elderberry. There may be some folks growing black elderberry in the area, but I haven’t found them. Let me know if you know of any in the Western Washington area or even down in to Oregon. If you live outside of the Pacific NW, you may have a different species available to you. The most common species seems to be American Elder, which has a strong folk tradition of medicinal use, but please do your own research and don’t just go taking herbs on my say so.

Only black elderberry (sambucus nigra) has been officially studied for its medicinal effects but I am taking a chance on blue elderberry being as good for you since it’s what I have access to. There’s at least enough folk wisdom referenced about the use of blue elderberry for medicinal purposes to make me feel comfortable doing so. Foraged and Found Edibles at the Seattle Farmer’s market has them right now and hopefully will for a couple more weeks. I emailed ahead and asked them for 13lbs to pick up at the market and he had a box just all prepped for me to pick up when I arrived.

How to Process Elderberries

Note that the stems and unripe berries are toxic, so you will want to carefully pick over your berries and remove those. What I do is wash them and place them still on the stems on baking sheets in my freezer. Then when they’re frozen I take a fork and pull the berries off the stems and remove as many of the stems as I can. I flash freeze again since the berries have melted a bit while I do that, then pick over to get the last of the stems and green berries out and then put into quart bags to freeze. Some stems still make it into the bags so I will rinse them and sift yet again before using.

You could also dehydrate the berries. I just chose to freeze mine.

How to Use and How Much to Store

Here is the recipe I use to make elderberry syrup. 1 cup of berries should make 1.5 cup sof syrup, and 1.5 cups of syrup will make about 5-6 days of doses for one person at the recommended 1 tsp every 2-3 hours.  My 13 lbs of berries made about 8.5 quarts without the stems so that’s about 170 days of flu-level elderberry syrup doses, give or take. Should be plenty for two for the winter, heheh.

Continue reading “Eating Seasonally: Prepare for Flu Season now!” →

To Epi or Not to Epi?

If you haven’t read about Natalie Giorgi’s tragic death due to an allergic reaction already, catch up here. It’s a sobering story: her parents did everything right, yet she still died.


This article by Dr. Mark Greenwald states that the problem is that the guidelines for epipen use are incorrect. His opinion is that if a patient has a known potential for anaphylaxis and a known or suspected exposure to the allergen, epi should be given, even if symptoms have not presented. He holds that the “wait and see” approach, despite being what is advised by the medical community, is what killed Natalie.

I don’t have much more to say about it at this time. I’ll just link you to the article to read. With most articles I advise that folks don’t read the comments because of the rampant stupid, but the ones I read from this article were actually as informative as the article itself. I didn’t read them all though, so my apologies if you scroll to the bottom and someone has said something just awful.

Tragic Loss of Sacramento Teen Reveals Flaws in Anaphylaxis Guidelines

Don’t Panic: A Beginners’ Guide to Corn Allergy

So you’re allergic to corn.

First: Are you SURE you are allergic to corn? People often forge ahead with this as an assumption and in some cases, it might be best to question it, at least for a minute. As you will realize as you read the rest of this post, avoiding corn is not as simple as cutting a few foods from your diet. Corn is not only a food, it is a food additive, preservative, disinfectant, lubricant, emulsifier, anti-caking agent, and more. Not everyone has to avoid everything derived from corn, but for some reason more people have to avoid more derivatives than you’d ever expect.

If you’ve had an adverse reaction to a food, you should definitely avoid that food in the future. But if the food had many ingredients besides corn, it might be worth taking some time to think critically about whether the corn in the food was the problem or something else.

So before you start turning your life upside down: What gave you your diagnosis? Was it a scratch test? Those have false positives. Was it a blood test? Those don’t usually have false positives, but it could happen. Did you do a food challenge? What was the food you challenged? Any chance it was a possible allergen contaminant in the food other than corn?

Okay, so you’re SURE it’s corn that you’re allergic to. Now what?

The steps for dealing with a corn allergy are about the same no matter how severe your reactions are. But if you are having severe reactions, you need to follow sort of an accelerated schedule and get yourself out of crisis ASAP.

Symptoms of severe reactions include:

  • tight, hoarse, trouble breathing/
    swallowing
  • shortness of breath, wheezing, repetitive
    cough
  • Significant swelling of the tongue, lips
  • becoming pale, blue, faint, having a weak pulse, being dizzy
  • rash/hives over more than 25% of the body
  • widespread redness/flushing
  • loss of consciousness (including feelings of excessive sleepiness that you just can’t fight- getting to lay down before you pass out still counts as passing out!)
  • loss of motor coordination
  • extreme swelling of the eyes, lips, or anywhere else in the body
  • prolonged and or painful diarrhea/intestinal cramping
  • prolonged vomiting
  •  Feeling something bad is about to
    happen, anxiety, confusion

Read more about the signs of anaphylaxis here on the Food Allergy and Anaphylaxis Network.  In particular, please take a look at, and carry with you, this simple handout on how to recognize and treat anaphylaxis. Here is another overview of the effects of anaphylaxis on the body. If you are having these kinds of reactions, you need to make drastic changes right NOW, get as corn free as possible to begin. Then maybe you can see how much you can tolerate adding in from the “corn lite” options. People with less severe reactions can sort of take their time instead of diving in head first.

Who This Guide Is For

This guide is written for people who are reacting a lot or reacting severely, because that’s the situation I came from, but I think it can contain good advice for others.

Even if you aren’t currently in crisis, I don’t suggest that you start out by assuming that you aren’t very sensitive and don’t need to make many changes. Rather, I strongly suggest you aim for going completely corn free within 6 months, and *then* see how well you do with derivatives and traces. The reason I suggest this is that there are a number of symptoms people wouldn’t typically associate with an allergy or intolerance such as joint pain, mild GI distress, acid reflux, “random” mild rashes or itching, eye pain, fatigue, bouts of sleepiness, blood sugar highs and lows, and eczema, that can disappear with the elimination of corn, but that you wouldn’t realize are a reaction until you eliminate the offending food for a while and then reintroduce. All of these symptoms are indications of inflammation that are doing long term damage to your body, so it is in your best interest to eliminate those sources of inflammation so that you can heal.

Learn the Basics

The following article is a really good overview on the spectrum of allergies and sensitivities. Please read it right away to give yourself a good grounding in the basics before beginning your corn free journey: Inflammation – Allergies and Sensitivities on WomenToWomen.

Get Support

Find a community of people who have already done this. I suggest the Corn Allergy and Intolerance group on Facebook because it saved my life literally in 2012, but it’s also grown quite a lot since I joined, and more members means more posts from other new people.  I strongly believe that communicating with other patients can help you learn more about your own situation- there is no way I would have made the progress I have with either my food sensitivities or my other conditions without learning from others what did and didn’t work for them.  But keep in mind: no matter where you get support, that there is no shortcut for studying, learning, and using your best judgement.  If someone tells you that something is corn free, and it sounds to good to be true, probably err on the side of caution.

Stay Safe

  1. Figure out how to safely treat reactions.
  2. If you have the kind of severe reactions listed above, get a prescription for an EpiPen. If you have reactions that aren’t necessarily severe but are definitely a “true allergy” meaning hives, rashes, asthma, and other IgE symptoms, you may want to consider getting an EpiPen just in case. A bit more on “true allergies” vs intolerances. If your usual doctor won’t give you one, try the walk-in clinic. If they won’t give you one, skip directly to the “Get Your Doctor On Board” step and find someone who will write you a prescription. Learn when to use your epipen. The EpiPen 2-pak comes with a “training” pen and instructions on how to use. Read up on it before you need them and train at least one family member on how to use it as well.
  3. Read this emergency medicine info. Bookmark the mobile site and use the information to prepare your own ER docs.
  4. Don’t assume that if you do not have a true “allergy”, you cannot have a severe or life threatening situation as a result of your corn sensitivity: there have been some rare incidences of IgG, the immunoglobulin that causes “food intolerances”, causing anaphylaxis:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21029722/
  5. It is possible for food to do lasting or even immediately life-threatening harm without allergies being involved.  The following are not corn, but illustrate some ways that food can harm you other than allergy:
    1. Sulfite sensitivity is not mediated by IgE but can be deadly.
    2. Celiac disease is an autoimmune response to food and can do lifelong irreparable damage to your body.
    3. G6PD deficiency causes red blood cells to be destroyed in the presence of certain food or meds. This can be deadly and in some extreme cases people have died from airborne exposure to a trigger before they could be given blood transfusions.

Continue reading “Don’t Panic: A Beginners’ Guide to Corn Allergy” →

Advanced Corn Allergy Help: Tracking Down Mystery Reactions

Here’s the situation I was in a year ago: I had been corn and gluten free for 6 years, and thought I had it all figured out. Then suddenly I started having anaphylactic reactions to previously safe foods. I thought I must have a new allergen. In fact, I did have a few new allergens, but the one allergen that was causing the anaphylaxis was actually still corn. For many of the foods that I realized I was reacting to, I was able to eat another version of that food that was grown/processed without corn contamination.

If you know that you are allergic to corn, and find yourself reacting and confused because you think you are corn free, you may want to re-examine your food and household products for hidden corn. You may also have new allergens. It’s important for the sake of safety to examine all possibilities rather than dismissing any particular one without first exploring and testing.

Continue reading “Advanced Corn Allergy Help: Tracking Down Mystery Reactions” →

Corn Free Medication: Getting Prescriptions Compounded

Compounding pharmacies are pharmacies that get the pure active ingredients for a medication and put them together into custom formulations for you. Since corn products are in so many medications, a compounding pharmacy is often the only way to get a corn-free version of a medication. Rather than repeat good information that’s already been given, I’m going to direct you to an excellent blog post on getting medications compounded corn free and then add my own notes to it:

Getting Medications Compounded on News for Corn Avoiders

My Additional Notes

  • Your doctor may not know how to write a compounding prescription. Here is a link on how to do so to print out. Basically, they need to write “Compounded medication. Free from corn, [other allergens].” Then the *generic* name of the medication, and the amount and prescribing instructions. As long as they write compounded, though, your pharmacy should be able to call them and get any details worked out.
  • Some insurances cover compounding prescriptions with no problems, some won’t cover them at all, and some only cover if the drug is in their formulary, meaning it would normally be a precription. So compounded meds like acetaminophen or Benadryl are often not covered because they are usually over the counter. You’ll just have to talk with your insurance. In general compounding pharmacies do not bill insurance for you, so you do have to pay up front and then submit later.
  • Call several pharmacies until you find one that is willing to work with you. Explain that you need everything done just right because you react to a number of preservatives, excipients, and sweeteners. If they are disbelieving, move on. Ask about whether you can bring in your own filler to use that you know you tolerate, since you may react to all the fillers they use normally. If they are hesitant, move on.
  • Some compounding pharmacies charge more than others. If you have a few that seem like they can work with you, ask them the price for a 90 day supply of the first drug that you want (probably Benadryl, since there is no corn free version available off the shelf) and use that as a comparison point.
  • When you fill your first prescription, less is more. Go small because if you react, the pharmacy will probably not give you your money back. Maybe they will, but I wouldn’t count on it. With compounding unfortunately you can’t really fill just 1 or 2 pills for just a few dollars, as they have to calibrate the machines and all that jazz for 1 pill or for 100. So usually there is a minimum charge for that, and then a discount for quantity. So for example, a 90 day supply may end up being not much more expensive than a 30 day supply, but a 10 day supply could cost the same as a 30 day. Usually the price breaking point where you are paying a decent amount per pill is about 30 days. Or that’s been my experience.
  • If you are getting a capsule with a filler included in addition to the medication, be sure the filler is safe for you. Lots of times pharmacists try to insist that microcrystalline celllulose and lactose monhydrate are corn free. Many corn allergics react to them all the same. (Note: They may also be safe for you, it’s just not impossible to react to them. You will need to make sure.) The gelatin or veggie capsules may be corny, even if the manufacturer states that they are not. If it is possible, see if you can get a sample of the filler and capsules they want to use, without the actual meds, to trial to make sure you tolerate them. If you can’t tolerate any fillers they stock, they should let you bring in your own. Or really just start out with bringing in your own to reduce variables.
  • Many medications can be compounded without a filler. Do that when possible. Benadryl usually requires a filler because the amount of active ingredient needed is too small for the machine to measure. Some pharmacists will hand-stuff the pills without the filler but very very few.
  • If you are someone who is really having a lot of trouble finding a filler you tolerate, due to multiple sensitivities or an extremely sensitive corn allergy, you may need to go to some effort to find a pharmacy who is willing to make some pills for you without filler. Normally for very small doses like 100mg or less (so that would be most antihistamines) people say that a pill “can’t” be made without a filler. What they mean is that it can’t be made EFFICIENTLY. When using a capsule machine, one mixes up enough med+ filler to just exactly fill each capsule with the right dose and then does all the pills at once. If one were to sit there and hand stuff each individual pill, they could do it without the filler. Now finding someone who is willing to do this may be hard, but is technically possible. People have accomplished it. So if you need to, and aHere is a youtube video showing how pills are made by one compounder.
  • In addition to the capsules, medication, and filler, watch out for them stuffing cotton into the bottle to keep the pills from rattling around. I swear the cotton my last pharmacy used was corny somehow. Also watch out for whether they ship their meds with packign peanuts in the box. Those are made from corn starch.
  • There are some pharmacies that say they do compounding but do not actually order the pure medications. They get their medications from a distributor that actually already has excipients, fillers, and inactive ingredients in it. McKesson one such company- they distribute powder-form drugs with fillers already in it at specific concentrations, and the fillers are often corny. When you contact a compounding pharmacy make sure that they are getting the PURE medications.
  • Note that some pure medications are corny. Acetaminophen is made with acetic acid, which can be from corn. Antibiotics are cultured on corn sugar. Any mineral that ends with “citrate” or “lactate” will be that mineral + citric acid or lactic acid from corn. If you need the drug you need the drug, but be aware that the pure meds themselves can cause a reaction.

Up to $100 off on EpiPens 2-Packs!

Mylan is offering a “copay card” that can get you $100 off of the copay your EpiPen 2-Pack or EpiPen Jr. 2-Pack prescription. The cash price for each 2-pack is generally in the range of $200-$250, so this is a *significant* savings. The  offer is valid for up to three 2-packs per prescription.

To apply for the card, go to the Copay Card Activation Site,  fill out the form as instructed, and download and print your card. You can then begin using it right away. The card should have instructions for your pharmacist, and a number to call with questions.

Terms and Conditions of the program. 

The press release from Mylan on the program.

The offer expires December 31, 2013!

Preventing and Treating Allergic Reactions:

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How I Treat Reactions

Updated 12/2017:  I’ve edited this a bit to be more generalized because my specific methods have had to change due to my MCAS and G6PDD. 

Obviously I do my best to make safe decisions and not react. That’s what this blog is all about. But there are circumstances out of my control pretty often, especially since I have dangerous reactions to airborne corn, and honestly yeah, I do just screw up. My diet is pretty limited right now so I *have* to try new things. I am usually very careful and when a food fails I only deal with a very mild reaction before I call it quits, but sometimes I mess up, and sometimes the food is SO corny that trying only small amount causes a major reaction.

Here are some general things to try if you do react. This is loosely based on The Mastocytosis Society protocol, which even though it is for mast cell disease, can easily be applied to “regular” allergic reactions as well.

Note that all of my medications need to be compounded. This is due to corn derivatives found in many premade medications. Manufacturers and pharmacies may say that these derivatives cannot cause a corn reaction because the “proteins have been processed out”, but it has been demonstrated by those with corn allergies over and over that they DO react to these derivatives. Further, cross contamination during manufacture can cause an issue for the most sensitive even if the ingredients themselves are not sourced from corn. Add in multiple sensitivities, and you will probably have a very hard time with most excipients and inactive ingredients in medications. Here’s more info on how to find out the inactive ingredients in your meds.

The “magic formula” for treating reactions is:

  • An H1 antihistamine.  First generation antihistamines such as benadryl, or hydroxyzine would be the best bet for a strong reaction or a reaction involving neurological or mood changes, since these cross the blood-brainb arrier.  Typical is 25-50 mg for both. The max dose for hydroxyzine is higher than benadryl, but benadryl has some qualities that make it the prime choice for a reaction if it can be tolerated. More information on getting corn-free benadryl. Second generation antihistamines such as ceterizine (zyrtec), levocetirizine (xyzal), fexofenadine (allegra) may be a good choice for a less strong reaction
  • An H2 inhibitor, such as ranitidine (zantac) or famotidine (pepcid). This increases the effectiveness of the H1.
  • A mast cell stabillizer, such as cromolyn sodium or quercetin.  This *may* help prevent rebound reactions.
  • A steroid, such as methylprednisolone, prednisone, or dexmethasone. These should be used rarely and sparingly as side effects such as Addison’s disease and Cushing’s syndrome are a very real risk with steroid use.

Important: If you are having an anaphylactic reaction, simply taking these meds is not enough.  No antihistamine will stop anaphylaxis once it starts. The only thing that treats anaphylaxis is epinephrine. It is common hospital practice to adminster benadryl and “wait and see,” but this is NOT the correct treatment and can and has led to deaths.

If you are in doubt, epi. If you epi, always go to the hospital. 

Mayo Clinic Article on how to treat anaphylaxis


Manitoba, Canada public health department info in treating anaphylaxis

A Simple handout on how to recognize and treat anaphylaxis

An overview of the effects of anaphylaxis on the body

Rebound Reactions

When you have an allergic reaction, your body is flooded with histamines which run around creating inflammation all over your body. The actual symptoms of the reactions are due to your various cells’ response to the histamine. Antihistamines like benadryl simply block the receptors on your various cells that would notice and respond to the histamine. That means that when they wear off, if there is still histamine in your system, your cells will start responding again. This is known as a rebound.

I don’t have any scientific evidence of this, but it seems logical that a mast cell stabilizer may help to reduce the chance of a rebound reaction. Mast cell stabilizers actually help prevent the release of histamine in the first place, which *should* help prevent rebound reactions as the antihistamines wear off. I have noticed that it helps me.

Detoxing

After a reaction it will usually take me at least a day to recover, sometimes up to 10 days if it was a bad one. If I had to epi and go to the ER, I could be toxxed out for *weeks*. My tongue will burn every time I eat something and I will just feel like I’m mild-to-medium reacting constantly, or about to react. I call it “feeling full-buckety.” There’s no real cure for this other than time and lots of water, but there are a few things I do to help move the toxins out of my system faster.

How I Detox After A Reaction

  •  Bentonite clay baths or foot soaks in clay from Living Clay Company. I have only tried the pure bentonite clay (sold as the “detox clay powder”) and not any other products. I am on their mailing list and wait until they have free shipping promotions and then order large quantities at a time. I rarely have time for a full bath but I find that the foot soaks are 80% as effective as a full bath and easy to do often.
  • Bentonite Clay taken internally, with LOTS of water, to help absorb toxins/allergens and move them through the system faster.  I find this works better than activated charcoal at detoxing after a reaction, but I am mentioning both options.
  • Activated Charcoal, taken internally, for the same purpose as the bentonite clay. Again, lots of water to flush it through your system!  I am no longer recommending a specific brand of activated charcoal because the manufacturers keep changing what they do. You’ll need to do some research and find something that works for you.
  • Epsom salt baths and foot soaks- I am sulfur sensitive so I don’t do this anymore but it does help many. Dr Teal’s  unscented epsom salts are available at Kroger, Costco, Target, and on Amazon, and are safe for most.

A Note on Prevention

As i mentioned, antihistamines block the receptors that stimulate your mast cells to release histamines. Therefore blocking those receptors does not reduce the histamines already in your system, nor does it stop the inflammatory processes already happening from histamines that have already found a cell to stimulate. Thus it is better used to *prevent* reactions. Obviously avoiding triggers is the best bet, but something else I do is to take both antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers in advance when I know I am going into a dicey situation. Now, I don’t mean that I take antihistamines and then eat something bad. That’s stupid and dangerous. I just mean that if I think I am going somewhere where I could have an airborne exposure, (like Costco on a weekend when all the food samples are out)  or if I am in a situation where small children will be climbing all over me and possibly trying to stick hands and objects in my mouth, I take some appropriate precautions.

Before I go in to a potentially allergenic situation, I take:

  • 5 mg levocetrizine (xyzal)
  • 150mg zantac

I can still take up to 100mg of hydroxyzine on top of this. (It’s very sedating so I stick with 50mg or less typically). I avoid benadryl due to g6pdd one could also take up to 50mg of benadryl as well.

A Note on Zantac: Antacids to treat allergic reactions??!

When I have gone to the ER for an allergic reaction, they have given me two intravenous injections: Benadryl (diphenhydramine), and Zantac (ranitidine). The first time I got an injection of Zantac, I was totally confused. Isn’t that a medication for acid reflux?

Well, yes it is, but the mechanism by which it does that is by blocking (antagonizing) histamine receptors.  Compare to proton pump inhibitors such as Prilosec (omeprazole).  Prilosec actually stops the production of stomach acid, while Zantac stops the signals for gastric acid secretion *and* allergic reactions from being noticed.

H1 and H2 blockers taken together are significantly more effective in treating an allergic reaction than either one taken on their own. 

Because of this, a number of folks with anaphylactic food allergies take a daily preventative H1 and H2 blocker.  I’m one of them. I don’t hope to be on this kind of medication for the rest of my life. For one thing, H2 blockers have a number of effects on vitamin and mineral absorption over the long timer, including interfering with absorption of vitamin B12. Also, taking drugs just masks symptoms, and I’d much rather find the cause of the problem and heal. But I’m totally okay with doing it right now to reduce the possibility of a life-threatening reaction.

Daily Medications- when you can’t avoid your allergens

I encourage you to avoid all of the allergens you can avoid. But if you can’t, such as if your allergens are in the air, it may be wise to take medication daily to help reduce the possibility of a severe/anaphylactic reaction from an unexpected exposure.

Typical daily allergy meds are:

  • A non-drowsy H1 antihistamine such as levocetirizine (xyzal), cetirizine (zyrtec), fexofenadine (allegra), or loratadine (claritin). In many cases, you can actually safely take more than the label recommended amount of these meds. Check with your pharmacist.
  • An h2 antihistamine such as ranitidine (zantac) or famotidine (pepcid).
  • A mast cell stabilizer such as quercetin, nettle, or cromolyn sodium.

The only pharmaceutical medication I currently use daily is a prescription mast cell stabilizer, antihistamine, and leukotrine inhibiter called ketotifen fumarate. It helps me so much that I’ve quit taking the cromolyn and don’t need any other daily antihistamines. Ketotifen does have some side effects, including sedation and weight gain, so it is not a first choice medication for me for those reasons. However it has really allowed me  more freedom to exist in the world without fearing for my life from a reaction to what someone else decides to eat or wear.

During heavy environmental allergy season, I also take:

  • 10mg levocetirizine (xyzal), compounded in a gelatin capsule daily.
  • 150mg ranitidine, compounded in a gelatin capsule, no filler, twice daily

If I am traveling or know I will be exposed to a lot of triggers, I go ahead and take a prophylactic hydroxyzine in the morning and at night. The hydroxyzine is compounded and I take 25mg at the same time as the ranitidine, morning and night.  More if needed. More on what I do when I travel.

About getting Xyzal compounded.

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