Millions of people in this country suffer from hay fever. Your body reacts hypersensitively to harmless pollen, such as from hazel, birch or grass. Climate change exacerbates the problem. Not only does it allow plants to flower earlier and longer, but it also produces more and more aggressive pollen. The season begins in winter and lasts until autumn (for more on the subject, see the interview: pollen and allergies). Pollen count calendars, such as the German Pollen Information Service Foundation.
The afflicted are not defenseless against the irritants. Measures such as hair washing and nasal douches can often relieve hay fever (for more see tips for pollen allergy sufferers). There are also various medications for pollen allergies. The drug experts at Stiftung Warentest rated them, including a number of over-the-counter products. Pleasing: Suitable means are already available for a few euros. Our tables show the cheapest means with different active ingredients. Depending on the supplier and the active ingredient, a lot of money can be saved per pack.
Why the hay fever remedy test is worthwhile for you
Testergebnisse
Our tables show the cheapest of the best over-the-counter hay fever remedies. The test report explains how they help the nose, eyes, throat and airways, which active ingredients are suitable and when which dosage form is the drug of choice.
Compare and save
We have sorted the funds according to active ingredients and prices. You can see at a glance which drug is the cheapest in the corresponding group of active ingredients.
tips
We reveal what you can do beyond taking medication to keep your hay fever symptoms as low as possible.
Magazine article as PDF
After activation, you will receive the magazine article from test 3/23 for download.
These drugs help and are cheap
The best hay fever medication
Stiftung Warentest has examined various medications, including over-the-counter hay fever eye drops, hay fever nasal sprays and hay fever tablets. Some, but by no means all, remedies can be used with small children. There are big differences in prices. In our test tables, we show the cheapest preparations for the respective active ingredients.
Often used: hay fever tablets with antihistamines
The choice of medication also depends on the severity of the symptoms. Nasal sprays and eye drops, for example with cromoglicic acid or antihistamines, have a targeted effect at the point of use. But there are also antihistamines that can be taken orally, for example in the form of tablets. They have an acute effect on the entire range of symptoms. Drugs with the active ingredients cetirizine, levocetirizine, loratadine and desloratadine are available without a prescription. We tell you how they work and what they cost.
Cortisone nasal sprays for severe symptoms
If hay fever is bad for your nose, sprays with cortisone can be an option. Drugs with the active ingredients beclometasone, fluticasone and mometasone are available without a prescription. Sometimes they are combined with other medications, such as antihistamines for the eyes.
Get a pollen allergy checked
Anyone who is unsure whether hay fever is really causing the symptoms should have this checked out by a doctor. Good contacts are allergists. The experts can also optimize the therapy, for example if over-the-counter remedies are not effective enough. Hyposensitization is then conceivable, for example (more on this in our Hyposensitization test: what allergy treatment brings). An insufficiently treated pollen allergy is excruciating – and can get worse, for example when the so-called “floor change” spread to the lungs and cause asthma.
That’s how we rated it
For the drug evaluations of the Stiftung Warentest, experts have viewed the study situation on the subject. In this way, they checked whether there were any meaningful studies on the respective drugs, how effective they were and whether the benefits outweighed the risks. Based on this synopsis, the means are given ratings from “suitable” to “not very suitable”. The procedure is based on the rules of evidence-based medicine. You can find even more details on the methodology and our evaluations of more than 9,000 over-the-counter and prescription drugs from many different areas of application in our drug database.