Allergy Protocol

This time of year in the DMV is notorious. I constantly hear from folks that never suffered from allergies until they come here and suddenly they're itchy, stuffy, sneezy messes.

So what do we do?

Do we treat with conventional medications?
I'm not one to judge. If that's what works for you and your body chemistry, great.
For me I prefer to avoid conventional medications as a first step and the side effect "medicine head" is worse than the allergies I'm treating. I get a headache and just feel out of it for days. Also, as a nursing mother, I need to be careful with what I ingest.

Do we seek help from herbal allies?
This is the route I go. I use mechanical and herbal interventions to alleviate my allergy symptoms.
This is what works for me.

Mechanical:
Step one is to remove regularly whatever you're reacting to. Washing your face nightly, including warm compresses to your lids and lashes, gets the irritants away so they're not just sitting there bugging you. Cleaning your lids and lashes (either with just warm water or with something sold for this purpose) will help a lot with managing itchy, teary eyes.
Now that you've got it off your face, you need to get it out of your sinuses where is really messing you up. When my allergies are bugging me it feels like there's ants inside my nose. Use your neti pot to rinse those ants out! Look it. Using a neti pot, for me, is miserable. I hate doing it. I'm convinced I'm going to drown or that I'm going to get brain amoeba. I'm calmly pouring water in my nose but inside my head I'm screaming. BUT y'all. It works. I hate doing it so much and put it off but when I do it I feel so much better. I use the little packets that come with it because I'm afraid I'll get brain amoeba otherwise and ALWAYS use distilled water.

Herbal:
This is what I do and what works for me. What works for you and your allergens might be different.
Twice a day I ingest nettle and Centro Ashe's Aller-Support (with nettle, eyebright, and goldenrod) tinctures along with my usual skullcap. I ingest tinctures by adding to a small amount of water in a shot glass and taking it like a shot. Sometimes I'll take my shirt off and yell SHOTS SHOTS SHOTS for old times' sake while I'm at it.
 My daily tinctures vary but almost always include skullcap and nettle.
Along with my tinctures, I also consume 1/2 teaspoon bee pollen twice a day. Local is ideal and I have had great success with the brand pictured above. To consume the bee pollen I either just throw it in my mouth and swish it around with some water or I'll mix it in with yogurt or a smoothie. The difficulty with the latter is that you then have to make sure you consume the entire smoothie/yogurt so that you know you got it all.

I know that for me, this works. If I do this I will not be miserable. There will not be ants inside my nose and my eyeballs won't itch and I won't have a constant throbbing sinus headache.
I'm dying to know what works for other folks.
What's your allergy protocol?