Question about allergy severity with CF....

absoluteoffroad

New member
This might fit better in some allergy related forum, but I (and likely millions of other Americans...hehe) find that when the main allergy season comes, like NOW and in Fall that I can't go outside for over 20 min without feeling bad later in the day. To elaborate, I take Combivent inhailer, Advair inhailer, Zyrtec and Nasacort for regular, daily allergy preventative medications. Like I said, if I'm outside for under 1/2 an hour and come back in, later in the day the back of my throat will be really tickly causing me to cough badly. I find taking Robitussin CF(doc rec.) is the best liquid cough medicine for CF patients and then like lying down-leading to short nap "usually" helps control my cough for when I wake back up. On my last visit to the CF clinic, I told the doctor that allergies make me cough quite often. There are times when the cough is almost uncontrolable and I almost have to try to keep myself from coughing to stop it and take down cough medicine. Now, I know it might be largely due to excessive drainage from the sinus cavities whereas I hardly ever have headaches. So.......I was seein if anyone else here has this annoying cough FROM allergies. I might be preaching to the quior(sp) being a CF Forum but I figured I'd give it a shot. Next visit, I plan to really try to get a good answer and find out more about drug alternatives. I've thought about allergy shots but who knows.

Little history: I'm 22 and have had CF all my life. According to my doctors, for having CF, I'm extremely healthy. Lung functions are very very good, so they say. As a baby, the only way they found me to have CF was due to poor weight gain. Seems allergys are worse than my actual CF....hehe.
 

anonymous

New member
Have you tried different types of allergy medications? Theres allegra, Allegra D, of course my mind just went blank, oh claritin and claritin D. You might want to ask your doc for some samples of all of those and see if any of them make a dfference, just keep in mind it takes a week or two for your body to get use to them so if you don't see immediate results don't get discouraged. My husband who has CF has foudn that everything seems to get worse during "allergy" season and he went through everything before he found that Allegra D works the best for him.

Julie (wife to Mark 24 w/CF)
 

abloedel

New member
I suffer TERRIBLY during both the spring and fall allergy seasons, and my cough increases this time of year significantly, which I think is due to the increased sinus drainage....as a kid, if you've heard of it, I went through it...allergy testing, allergy shots, steriods, sinus surgery, etc., but I have found the number one thing that helps me to today is the salt water "baths" of the sinuses...when my symptoms are really bad, I "snort" about a 1/4 of cup of warm salt water into each nostril, and then blow my nose (a lot)...after a couple of days, the drainage is not so bad, thus decreasing the cough. I have not found any of the allergy medications to be helpful, but they might work for you...

Amy
36 w/CF
 
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