I'd suffered from "hay fever" for several years, but the worst episode was when I was 19 years old. My parents had moved to a rural area, and when I came home from college I was so badly affected I simply could not stop sneezing, along with the other usual effects.
I was sneezing about once per minute on average, the only way I could alleviate the symptoms was to put my head under a damp cloth to keep the pollen out, clearly not a satisfactory solution.
Just one visit to the doctor solved the problem, he gave me a single large dose steroid injection. The sneezing stopped within a very short time, but the real benefit is that I've hardly been affected since.
Given that this treatment was so effective, I seriously question the need for these repeated medications. I suspect that the dosage proposed by the drug companies is of a sufficient level to give temporary relief from the symptoms, but not enough to trigger a permanent cure. Guess who makes lots of money.
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