So a month ago, I had a nasty bunch of sniffles and coughing and post-nasal drip and overall yuckiness. It took a long time to get better, and I never really made it back to 100%. About a week ago, it came back. Once again, it’s sniffles all the time, ultra snottiness, and coughing spells at night from the drip.

I thought it was a pair of colds. My she-boss thought it sounded more like allergies. I’ve had hay fever problems before, but it’s just never been this bad. Nevertheless, I decided to treat it like allergies and see if it would clear up.

I can’t take diphenhydramine, the main ingredient in Benadryl, or another popular antihistamine/decongestant, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. Even the non-drowsy formulas make me a complete head case — tired, spacy, unable to think.

So I picked up some Alavert. It uses loratadine, the same antihistamine as Claritin (and really the only reason I picked Alavert is because it was cheaper than Claritin — otherwise, they’re the same).

Already today, day one, I feel a lot better. My sinuses are a lot drier (not so much with the coating of snot), I’ve only had one coughing fit instead of the usual dozen, and the most amazing thing, my speaking voice is back. It had been raspy for at least a month, and now in one day it sounds much more normal. I’m also not as wiped-out tired (though I’m still a little tired, since I was up coughing the last few nights).

I’ll be very interested to see how I sleep tonight.