Cheap hay fever tablets: how to save £10 a month

The costs of buying antihistamines can add up over the season, especially as increasingly unpredictable weather patterns could mean symptoms last longer. You can save £10 a month or more by following our advice.

We've found switching the type or brand of antihistamine you buy can save significant amounts. You can save around £10 a month if you switch from branded to own-brand or generic options, and even more if you switch to one-a-day tablets.

Eat well, live better and stay healthy. 

Generic vs branded hay fever tablets: how to save £10 or more per month

We checked the prices of four common types of antihistamine tablets in pharmacies, supermarkets and discount stores and found that there are big savings to be made.

The cheapest option for a daily tablet costs just 3p per tablet, while one of the priciest is 40p per tablet.

Here's how much you can save for a month's supply (30 pack) by buying a generic rather than a branded product with the same active ingredient:

Cetirizine Hydrochloride (one-a-day):vsmonthly saving of £10.11Loratidine (one-a-day): vsmonthly saving of £9.19Chlorphenamine maleate (up to three tablets per day)  vs monthly saving of £3.90*Fexofenadine hydrochloride (one-a-day): vs  monthly saving of £5Prices correct as of 04 April 2024 and based on non-offer prices. *based on one tablet per day.

While branded products do cycle on and off special offer (for example, Clarityn is currently £7 for Tesco Clubcard holders and 'buy one get one half price' at Boots), generic versions are almost always still going to be cheaper.

You can make further savings by swapping from a more expensive type of antihistamine to cheaper one (for example, from fexofenadine to cetirizine), or by picking a one-a-day formulation.

Are cheap antihistamines as good as branded ones?

Our research has repeatedly shown that switching to generic or own-brand medicines, particularly in supermarkets or discount stores, can save you money. 

By law, generic or own-brand versions of medicines have to comply with exactly the same standards of quality, safety and efficacy as branded ones. So if they have the same active ingredients this means there's no difference in the main action of the drug.

Thorrun Govind, pharmacist and immediate past chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's English Pharmacy Board, explains: 'The main difference may be the "excipients" – the added things that make the tablet taste how it does or how the ingredients bind together – but the active ingredients are the same and they work in the same way.'

- find out how to save up to £340 a year, plus what you can buy cheaper over the counter

Getting the best from your hay fever medication

It's worth stocking up early, as the advice is that it's best to start using antihistamines preventatively, rather than after you experience symptoms.

If you're heading off on holiday, it's worth having some stowed away in case allergies strike, or if you get itchy insect bites.

If your regular anti-allergy medication isn't working as well as it used to, switching to a different active ingredient might help. 

source https://www.which.co.uk/news/article/cheap-hay-fever-tablets-how-to-save-10-a-month-aplRj1H1hmkb