Good news if you prefer the allergy medication Allegra: it’s now available over-the-counter. Bad news, if you’re reader Cynthia: it’ll cost more for you out of pocket, and you can’t get it from the Kaiser mail-order pharmacy anymore.

She writes;

Now that the allergy medicine Allegra is available without a prescription, my healthcare provider (Kaiser) is no longer covering it. (See attached letter; my name & address have been redacted.)

The letter says “OTC Allegra offers you the convenience of prescription-strength allergy therapy without the need for office visits, refill requests, or prescription co-payments/cost shares.” What this means for me is that my Allegra costs are going to TRIPLE. (The lower-priced drugs like Claritin and Zyrtec do nothing for me.)

I fail to see how driving to the drugstore to obtain Allegra will be more convenient than receiving my medications by mail as I do now. (I guess there’s always Amazon.com.)

I’m not sure how important this is to you, but I thought I’d pass it along because I know it affects a lot of people.

Plenty of above-board online drugstores offer the medication. Allegra users, feel free to put your heads together in the comments section and find the best and cheapest option.

And have heart: I’ve been taking Claritin for about sixteen years now. Back then, it a pricey prescription-only drug, and now I pay twenty bucks at BJ’s for a year’s supply.

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