A couple weeks ago on New Year’s Eve, my mom had to run a couple of errands, and I asked her if she can pick me up some allergy meds whilst she was out.

My nose was itchy and stuffy and I was having bad sinus headaches.

When she came home about an hour later, she gave me a bottle of allergy meds and she told me “I looked in two different stores, but they don’t make over the counter allergy meds for a stuffy nose. At least, all the allerg meds i could find were for runny nose.”

And I just find that weird. Because my nose wasn’t runny. It was stuffed to the point I could hardly breathe through it properly. But apparently cold and flu meds are for stuffy noses

Why don’t they make OTC allergy meds like Claritin or Allegra-D for stuffy noses?

  • cattywampas@lemmy.world
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    6 hours ago

    Cold medicines don’t treat colds, they treat cold symptoms, many of which are the same as allergy symptoms.

      • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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        6 hours ago

        If someone is yelling for help because they’re bleeding out, do you first ask them whether they were cut or stabbed or shot and based on their response choose what to do? I’d hope you’d skip that part and simply stop the symptom, the bleeding.

          • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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            5 hours ago

            If someone is bleeding, it doesn’t matter if the bleeding is coming from a cut, a stab wound, or a hole made by a bullet. You stop the bleeding. THEN, afterwards, when the bleeding is stopped, you can think about the underlying cause and whether you need to do anything about that (like sew up the wound, look for the bullet etc).

            If someone has a stuffy nose, it doesn’t matter if the swelling is caused by a cold or the flu or allergies. You stop the swelling. THEN, afterwards, when the swelling is going down and the person can breathe again, you think about the underlying cause and whether you need to do anything about it (like antihistamines, antibiotics).

            Do you see the parallel?

              • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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                5 hours ago

                Your nose is “stuffy” because the mucous membranes in your nose are swollen. A decongestant causes that swelling to go down.

                  • Lumidaub@feddit.org
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                    2 hours ago

                    Girl. The very first thing I said included “you want the swelling to go down”. You didn’t seem to mind. If you don’t want help, don’t ask for it.

                  • Jtee@lemmy.world
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                    4 hours ago

                    JFC literally everyone has been saying cold medicine treats these symptoms and you just reply with “I don’t want cold medicine”. You’ve been given the answer. Cold medicine treats the same symptoms as your allergy. Just call it allergy medicine to yourself or something