Ds 18 hayfever and hives

[Choccymumma]

Hi all,
My son has hayfever and takes 120mg fexofenadine once a day. He finds by tea time its worn off. Tonight he is so bad. One hand has had a red itchy rash, white lumps under the skin. He has a purifier in his room but currently doing his A levels.
Can he take anything else? Is it normal to get a rash like that? Any other tips to relieve symptoms?
Thanks.

Has he tried chlorphenamine maleate - available in pharmacies without a prescription. He'd have to stop the fexofenadine, but you can take chlorphenamine about every six hours and I find it works better.

@Choccymumma I also suffer badly and have done for years. You can get stronger Fexofenadine on prescription. It’s 180mg if I remember correctly. Also, double check with a pharmacist but when I was at my worst I was advised to take my Fex each morning and take a Piriton each evening. I was also prescribed a steroid nasal spray and eye drops, although these could only be used for a short time.

I'll contact the doctor first thing.
Can it make you feel really ill? Hes so poorly with it tonight.

Yes, OP, hayfever can make you feel really poorly

I'm on the fexofenadine at the same dosage and along with that I use dymista spray from about march through to October every year. It's an absolute god send, I'd definitely ask the GP to prescribe that. They might try to offer alternative nasal sprays but none of them worked for me, dymista is expensive so they don't like to prescribe it. It does take a few days/a week or so to take affect but once it does it's brilliant stuff.

And yes, when I have hay fever bad it can make me feel very poorly, achy, rashy, just generally awful. I hope your ds can find something that works well for him, especially given he's sitting exams.

Thanks all.
I really feel for him.
He has an air purifier but wondered about a humidifier? Any experience with those?

Yep - DD has always found chlorphenamine (aka Piriton) to be the most effective. Only downside is that it is one of the older antihistamines and therefore comes with increased risk of drowsiness so not ideal when it comes to exams etc OP

Contact the GP, there are some great nasal sprays on prescription now (Dymista).

With hay fever medications, they need to be started at least 2-4 weeks BEFORE hay fever season starts. Because it's easier to stop the inflammation build up, because as once the inflammation starts then it's almost impossible to reverse it.

So meds needs to be started 2-4 weeks before hay fever usually in March and needs to be continued daily (whether there are symptoms are not) till the end of the hay fever season.

It's worthwhile checking pollen levels on days when you're going out. Sometimes that means not going out for me unfortunately.

Sunglasses can be protective and reduces the amounts of pollen entering through the eyes.
You also need to shower and wash hair after every going out session as the pollen stays on your hair, skin and clothes and you keep reacting to it over days!
Also things like not opening windows on high pollen days, wash all bedding if windows were open.

There's lots of lifestyle things to be done to make hayfever more manageable. The allergy UK website has a great page on it with tons more advice.

Stress of life (in this case exams) can cause extra rashes when the immune system is already on overdrive unfortunately.

Speak with the GP because we know hayfever causes a decrease in expected exam results!

I wondered if he could take fexofenadine in the morning and piriton at night, would aid sleep and be ok for the morning?

A pollen purifier may be helpful but a humidifier won't be. Not for hayfever.

Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure he could
I used to take 4 Zyrtec a day and at one point it worked out I was on about 350mg antihistamines altogether (for hives)

Having googled, fexofenadine is used but off label up to 540mg daily for hives so he could (check with doctor) do 1 in the morning and one in the evening

Just checked what I was on and it was (at the same time)
180mg fexofenadine 3 x daily
2 x Zyrtec twice daily

Vaseline put up your nose traps a lot of the pollen. Best done when you first wake up before you start reacting and nose streaming.
About a pea sized amount rubbed all around the inside of each nostrils. Sounds gross but does help. Can be reapplied throughout the day

A nasal douche is also really helpful. This is the one I use:

NeilMed Original Sinus Rinse Kit with 60 Premixed Sachets https://amzn.eu/d/bsnp208

I make my own salty solution once the premixed sachets were used up.

I lost decades of my life due to hayfever but now the biggest difference to me has been starting meds in March, the nasal rinse kit, and showering after going out in hayfever season and checking the pollen count daily. Best of luck!