Hi Laura, sorry to hear of all the trouble your daughter is having. I had to go back and find our other conversation to refresh my memory and see if I have anything new to offer. Definitely ask for a prescription antihistamine like Allegra, Zyrtec, or Clarinex to see if your daughter can tolerate it better than Benedryl. These are pills, so that should eliminate the problem with red dye. They are also stronger and non-sedating, though Zyrtec did make my daughter drowsy (didn’t bother my son, though).

You might also ask her allergist about immunotherapy (allergy shots). I know several people who finally tried that and it was so successful, they wished they had done it a lot sooner. With my son and his allergies/asthma, we got into a pattern of treating symptoms and never considered the shots. If I had to do it over, I would give the shots a try instead of him suffering and taking so many medications. It did greatly improve when he went through puberty, though.

You are probably already using a saline nasal spray and humidifier. Also Nasacort really works great, but I saw that you said it gave your daughter nose bleeds. Ask the dr. about that. Maybe the nose bleeds are just from dryness and if you increase the humidity and saline, maybe she could then tolerate the Nasacort. Or maybe the dr has another suggestion.

Another thing I’ve found is that sinus infections don’t always go away with a 10 day course of antibiotics, like the family dr usually prescribes. Our allergist prescribes a 3 week course. But you said your daughter has had 2 antibiotics, so she may need a CT scan to be sure the infection is cleared. It can also show if she has a deviated septum or some other cause of the repeated infections.

My daughter’s last scan showed that her infection had cleared. We had it done because she had a month of a low grade fever, and we were just making sure it wasn’t from her sinuses. I guess it was just a virus because it finally went away. She’s doing ok now, just tired as usual and has a ton of school work to do. We went to see a new endo who ordered a ton of blood work, so we’ll see if that shows up anything.

Take care!