My mom is severely allergic to cats. About as allergic to cats as you can get. It's a long story on how this happened, but a cat did come to live with us. My mom was almost always on Benadryl. Poor woman Always drowsy & tired, but it was able to keep her allergies under control around the cat.
However, my boyfriend gets horrible allergies this time of year. He has taken nearly every allergy medicine available and nothing works! His doctor says the only way he could get rid of them would be to get some sort of steroid shot! It's rather expensive & my bf doesn't have medical insurance right now () so the poor guy is miserable Thankfully he's usually only like this for about one month out of the year.
Good luck with everything T_M!! I hope you find something that works for you! I know you love your hammis and gerbils, it would be horrible if you had to give them away!