An antihistamine druggie

Please remember that I am not a health professional of any kind. My notes represent my own experience and reactions to the drugs in the past and present. Your reactions may be different.

Oh, and I am not paid by anyone to say either good or bad things about the drugs.

Aerius (Desloratadine) - evidently this is America's Clarinex. I use it, it seems to do the job, although for me the restriction of one a day means I have to take another antihistamine to finish the job.

Histazine or Zyllergy (cetirizine dihydrocholride) - sold in Israel, apparently not in the states. It does not seem to be exactly the same as zyrtec (cetirizine hydrocholride, just one, not di) nor xyzal (levocetirizine dihydrochloride). Whatever. Works fine enough for me.

Profiten or Zaditen (ketotifen) - now that I look it up, it says that it is mostly used for asthma prevention. So maybe you (and I) shouldn't be using it for atopic dermatitis. Dunno. I took it twice daily as part of my switching scheme and it seemed to work OK at the time. But I'll try to pay more attention if I ever take it again.

Mizollen (Mizolastine) - the pages I read claim it has less sedative effects, but as I never suffer from sedation from the regular antihistamines, I failed to appreciate the gesture. In fact it gave me gases and caused my mouth to taste weird. If I recall correctly, this seemed to be caused by the inactive ingredient that had something to do with lactose (although I am not lactose intolerant as far as I know). Stopped once I switched to a different drug. Oh, seems to be European only - couldn't find it in the states.

The real sedative antihistamines:

Phenergan (promethazine), as stated in the previous post, is an antihistamine that causes some sedation/calming. The sedation part is supposed to calm down the itchy and scratchy show. For me it just sent me on a wild ride of dizziness, nausea, and major major headaches (caused, as far as I could tell, by extremely high hearing sensitivity. Think Clark Kent in Smallville when he first discovers superhearing).

Otarex (Hydroxyzine hydrochloride) (Atarax in the states) - it is considered as the same family of drugs as phenergan.It's supposed to relieve that itchiness that drives you bananas. Well, it did. It also, in both distant and recent past attempts, gave me those same severe headaches, as well as memory lapses. It affected my ability to think clearly, and caused extreme drowsiness. For me at least it was NOT worth it.

The Headaches with a capital H lasted for a few weeks after stopping to take Otarex (and I only took it for a week). But after I stopped Phenergan they stopped within a day or two.

The other allergy

In trying to get rid of the many side effects I had been suffering due to the massive infusion of drugs that I was on, Dr. R in my first checkup recommended stopping to take Phenergan. This drug is an antihistamine that also induces calm and so is expected to ease itchiness. By this point I was sleeping fine at nights

Dr. R was right in a sense. My nasty side effects all but went away. The massive headaches due to noise sensitivity completely disappeared and the worst of the nuasea, dizziness etc. was gone with the wind.

However Dr. R (dermatologist) dismissed my question about replacing the phenergan with another antihistamine. After all, I was getting aerius, wasn't I? That should be enough, said the doctor.

Enough for the itching, maybe. But within two days, I was sniffling and sneezing, my nose was running a marathon, and I was coughing up mucus like it was fifth grade and I was in a spitting contest. In other words, my allergic rhinitis had reared its ugly head, with a little bit of asthmatic mucus as a side dish. After all, before changing to otarex (later switched to phenergan) I was balanced on a two-antihistamines-a-day diet. So backing down to one was definitely not good.

The good news? Once I put the histazine back on, the runny nose ran in to hide and it's back to normal. Or as normal as it gets around here, anyway.

So there's my reverse warning from the last post. Your dermtologist may discount your other allergies. You have been warned.

Drug info in the following post.