I’ve started checking Yahoo’s West U.S. Pollen map to see how my snifflies compare with the ratings. What I should be doing is inhaling NasalCrom before my symptoms start, but I have this strange idea that by knowing how bad things may get, I can feel better about taking drugs to stop it. I was brought up to not use medications until drastic symptoms occured. I never took aspirin for a headache or ibuprofin for a pain (I do at least think of doing so now, and sometimes take a pill). NasalCrom works the way I prefer drugs to work. Instead of trying to fix or mask the allergy symptoms, it goes to the root cause of the problem by preventing the mast cells in your nose from releasing histamines. Your symptoms don’t get triggered. It has no bad side effects (that I know of), doesn’t knock me out, is safe for kids, is not steroids, is not habit forming (medically, anyway), has no interactions with other drugs, and for me, it really works. (This was not a paid advertisement. A lot of money was put into advertising Claritin. The New York Times Magazine recently had a long article about the business of Claritin. “$80 for a drug that works only half the time?”)