Online Pharmacy: Pharmacies struggling to provide allergy medicine

Boxes and bottles of medicines line the shelves of the Albertsons Pharmacy. But the section of allergy medications is less than half-full and diminishing daily.

"Now that it's warm out and everything's growing and shedding, people really need allergy medication," store pharmacist Katie Baker said.

In the past few weeks, several medications have been harder to come by because of the increased amount of pollen in the air brought on by the wet spring and present heat.

Baker said Benadryl, Sudafed and allergy eye drops have been the medications in the highest demand, and at Albertsons they've been keeping allergy medicine behind the counter to make sure a small number of people don't buy out the shelf.

She said they have taken to special ordering certain medications to prevent a shortage, but it's hard to keep up with demand.

"People who have never had allergies before are coming in with allergies," she said. "And people who have had allergies are reacting more this year."

Baker also attributed the higher demand of allergy medications to the tourist season, explaining that people come to Montana and encounter plants for the first time and develop allergies.

The pharmacies at CVS and Wal-Mart have also had difficulties supplying medications.

One Wal-Mart employee restocked a near-empty shelf of Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra and several generic brands of allergy medicine, saying for weeks the shelf was a "black hole."

Pharmacy technician Jake Zywicke at CVS said they were selling out of "everything under the sun," but he didn't suspect it was drastically different from any other allergy season.

"The truck comes on Sunday, and we're out of everything by Tuesday. That's just how it goes," he said.

Zywicke said people look for brand-name medicines, but that the generic products get the job done, too. If more people knew that, they wouldn't run out of certain kinds of medicine, he said.

Allergist Alan Wanderer of Allergy and Asthma Consultants of Montana said this year has been a "compressed pollen season," meaning the heavy rain early on kept the pollen from floating in the air, rendering May a relatively allergy-free month. When the sun came out, this triggered a period of intense pollination.

"There's a heightened release of pollen right now, and people are seeking all kinds of remedies," he said.

He said his office has seen two or three times as many patients in the past month compared to last July. It's even affecting people with asthma, particularly cyclists who spend a lot of time outside inhaling pollen.

"When everyone spends a lot of time outside, we end up spending a lot of time helping people," Wanderer said. "It's not great for everyone, but this is a time when we really get to help."

Wanderer said one thing people may not be aware of is that allergies increase over time. After one allergy season, it takes less pollen to produce more symptoms, which can include the typical itchy eyes, runny nose, congestion and hives, but also fatigue.