Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

Ya' gotta be amused[*] by the idea of selling scissors in packaging that requires scissors to open.

(Fortunately I bought them so I could have a pair specifically for the darkroom, not because I had no other scissors in the house.)

[*] Otherwise you'll waste too much energy on rage.

Because of my post yesterday afternoon, a local friend attempted to give me some of their surplus Zyrtec, running into extra hassles on the road wending hither from yon. I was, and am, grateful for the effort. But just as we were saying goodbye, I took a closer look and realized to my horror that this was a newer, improvified version. It was time-release, and it was Zyrtec-D.

Investigating farther, we discovered that the "-D" meant what I feared: to have a new version to market the newness of, and probably to have a product that still had patent protection, they did what all greedy antihistamine-makers seem to do at the seventeen year mark nowadays, and made a version with pseudoephederine added to it.

Which means unlucky folks like myself can't take it. The effects of Sudafed on me are quite unpleasant. I discovered this back when Seldane still worked for me and I still had medical coverage. I called my HMO to say, "It's spring, there's pollen, and I need my Seldane prescription renewed. No, I don't need a decongestant, just the antihistamine. If the antihistamine does its job, the decongestant will be moot." They said they'd call it in to the pharmacy. Well that year they had pens and notepads and calendars in front of them pushing the then-brand-new Seldane-D, so that's what they called in.

The morning after I took my first dose, I called back to ask, "What the Hell is in that stuff that makes it different from plain old Seldane? I didn't stop shaking all night, I didn't sleep, and I felt like crap the whole time and still do!" The answer: pseudoephederine ... when I had specifically said "No thanks" to decongestants. The next time I saw my doctor (as opposed to phoning other people in her office or at the HMO's HQ), I brought it up again, and she said that I probably couldn't take any other decongestants either, and neither could she for the same reason. (I did eventually get my plain Seldane that spring.)

For people who can take pseudoephederine, is there any actual benefit to having both drugs in one pill? Do you still need a decongestant if your antihistamine is effective? Or is this only a marketing/patent ploy without real benefit to patients? (It makes more sense to me in cold remedies than it does in allergy meds. The other place I have to watch out for it is in cough syrup.)

Anyhow, I'm grateful for the thought and the effort, and am disappointed that my friend wound up making a wasted trip. In the meantime, I'm glad to have learned it's OTC in Canada, so relief will arrive at some point in generic form.

"In today's expanded-coverage, depleted-budget media environment, when it is essential to fill air time or grab quotes as rapidly and cheaply as possible, liars are treated with the same respect as experts. And as it turns out, liars are a hell of a lot more available on short notice." -- Hunter 2005-04-09

Electrical tape is not as opaque as I thought it was. Whoops.