Hay fever in London in May?
 

I will be in London from May 12 - May 30 and I suffer from tree pollen allergies. It looks like this is high season for tree pollen in london. Is it miserable?

In the US I used to take Actifed and it made life perfectly bearable but then they went and changed the formulation to something that's no better than a placebo, really. I understand they still sell the original Actifed triprolidine/pseudoephedrine formula in the UK at the pharmacy counter (with limit restrictions). Does anyone know if this is true? Because even if the pollen is bad, if I can get hold of some of that I'll be golden. Otherwise I'll have to order Drixoral from Canada or something before I leave. I just want to be sure I'll have something effective with me so I can enjoy my trip.


Thanks,
Angela

I've had very good results with Cetirizine which is OTC and quite cheap at Walmart or Sam's Club or probably anywhere.

With doctor's advice, I take it every morning, not waiting for symptoms.

I used to buy my cetirizene in London and Paris when it was still on RX here in the US. I still buy my Flonase there , called Flixonase in Europe in London. Actifed and Drixoral raise blood pressure so are not good for some people. I take the cetirizine regularly and am never bothered with symptoms, and I have year round allergies

Thanks for the info. I haven't had much luck with the newer classes of allergy meds, but maybe I'll give Zyrtec with pseudoephedrine another try if I can't find my old standbys. But man, if I could get some real Actifed over there, it would be like the holy grail!

I have the same type of allergies, tree pollens, and find Neoclarityn (desloratadine) very good. You can now buy it without prescription in the UK.

Actifed etc still have pseudoephedrine in them here. You can only buy them in chemists - not normal shops. Piriton is the main hay fever remedy here.

Thankfully Meth isn't a problem here (yet).