SkipRatt mountain bike blog

Allergies and mountain biking, am I the only one suffering at this time of year? Or are you the kind of person that suffers from allergies all year round? Allergies have been a pain in the ass for the last 5 years or more for me and makes me feel unfit. Here is a list of issues caused by allergies when riding mountain bikes:

1) Sneezing
2) Watering and itchy eye's
3) Coughing up snot
4) Lack of breath
5) Nasal congestion
6) Headache's

What can be done to over come the above problems? Well most doctors prescribe "Antihistamines" in tablet or nasal spray form, or you can just buy these from most shops and chemists. I'm not sure how effective this is, but I do know that it does not work for me!
Antihistamine tablets alone do nothing at all for me, and I have tried almost all of them on the market, (quite a few of these were prescribed one's too)! Nasal spray works well for short periods, at minimizing sneezing fits. But I find that it adds to the crap already up my nose, and I never get any mountain biking done!

Last year I started using some antihistamines called "Telfast" 180mg with 168mg of Fexofenadine an active ingredient (as fexofenadine hydrochloride 180mg). Yes I'm reading it from the box!!!
As it felt like it was minimizing the symptoms for me however slight, I started taking 2 instead of the prescribed 1! This worked for a little while at controlling my allergy, but my system must have got use to them as they became ineffective.

This year has been quite promising with what I now take and it's effects at reducing or even curing my allergies and making mountain biking more pleasurable. I still take "Telfast" but also 400mg of ibuprofen twice a day. I take 1 "Telfast" and 400mg ibuprofen in the morning and the same in the evening. Depending on the severity I may take 400mg of ibuprofen 4 hours after the first and continue the cycle throughout the day.

I am however beginning to think that 400mg of ibuprofen alone will do the job just fine at making me feel normal,, as normal as can be anyway!

Obviously this is what is working for me at present and I'm not asking everyone to rush out and start taking Ibuprofen on a regular basis as this is not ideal but the only way that I have found I can manage my allergies and continue mountain biking.

I would love to hear some input from people, find out what you take, and possibly find something natural which will work as this would make me a lot happier. On the natural note I have just recently started drinking honey in warm water as this is supposed to help allergies so I will let you know how I get on with that!!