The '-D' stands for 'Dammit!' [Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος]

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.

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in over the counter stuff, I find it helpful...the decongestant works faster than the antihistamine, sometimes by up to an hour. Decongestants treat different symptoms - without getting technical into what they do, antihistamines can't do anything about what's already happened. They just keep anything else from starting. Decongestants fix the stuff that's already happening. By the time you *feel* stuffy, it's already too late - the histamines have bonded with the allergens. It can take up to 2 hours for an anti-histamine to provide relief. In the interim, the decongestant fixes it so that you can at least breathe.

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Usually just the pseudephedrine (pseudephed) is sufficient for me. One benefit I used to enjoy when working at a hospital" buying 100 tabs of generic 30 mg pseudephedrine for less than 5 dollars.
One solution I found by accident this winter: chloraseptic (phenol solution). I used it for my throat but discovered it also worked as an immediate decongestant.

I can't apparently handle pseudoephedrine either. If I try to sleep after taking it, I go into a twilight state between sleeping and waking that is very debilitating.

Somehow, every few years I forget this fact and take some cold medicine, and then realize once again why I have to avoid them.

I dunno...antihistamines make me sleepy so usually I stick with the decongestant.

I concur with what thespian said. Like other multi-symptom medications, it really should be taken as two different pills so you treat only the current symptoms. I tend to avoid pseudoephederine because it knocks me out and dries me up like a desert. When I need it, I take a half-dose and plan to be asleep. Antihistamines seldom make me sleepy, except when I'm already tired and they clear up the problem that's been keeping me awake. It's hard to remember these details when I'm suggesting relief of some sort to others.

My allergists gives me two separate prescriptions because I complained that the sudafed kept me awake at night. So I take two pills in the morning, one 12hr decongestant and one 24hr antihistamine. If I know I want to be up all night, I'll take another of the decongestants in the evening.

As it turned out, it's much less expensive for me to do this. The combo meds were more expensive then the two non-combos put together.

It works for me.

My story: When my pollen nightmare started a few weeks ago, I took plain sudafed decongestant, which as pseudophedrine. It wasn't helping to make my sore throat go away, although it would give temporary relief. I switched to the combo with antihistimine. I was getting some side effects, but eventually my symptoms went away. I stopped taking it and had a relapse the next morning. Plus I had hives. The urgent care clinic said maybe it's the combination that bothers me and prescribed the separate antihistimine (Zyrtec) and nasal spray. I mentioned that the one time I had tried Claratin a year or two ago, it had the side effects, and she asked whether it was Claratin-D, and unfortunately since I threw it away I will never know. But strangely, as I have described in my LJ, the antihistimine did not have side effects while I was taking the steroids for the hives, but before and after I took the steroids I had the side effects.

Anyway, the doctor at the clinic did say that a lot of people need to take them separately. I don't know for sure if this is the case with me, but I might have special circumstances.

yes, i have to take both on occasion, and yes i prefer them separate.

the antihistamine can slow the "runny nose" (and reduce sneezing but i still get at least 2 painful ones a day), but it also clots up what's in the sinuses themselves.

pseudofed i take separately for that, but only in the 4-hour pills, to handle that, but i still also need guaifenasen, the expectorant, to reduce the inevitable sinus drainage.

so its a 24-hour claratin, with occasional 4-hour "blue liquid-pills", usually generics.

i can't take any form of 24-hour psuedofed. i discovered that the 24-hour ingrediant and psuedofed don't get along in my system -- all the psuedofed gets into my system at once so i breath brilliantly for 4 hours, and then the kickback's a bitch.

>For people who can take pseudoephederine, is there any actual benefit to having both drugs in one pill?

On occasion, yes, i FIND THE PSEUDOEPHEDRINE TO BE EFFECTIVE when I don't accidently hit the caps lock key. Other than that, my congestion is sometimes taken away and sometime3s not taken away by an antihistamine without pseudoephedrine HCl.

Sympathies. I had a bad trip on Sudafed back when I was 16, and I haven't taken pseudoephedrine since.

You're not the only one with pseudephedrine problems. My doctor's residents are always telling me to handle the sinusitis thing with antihistamines and decongestants, but the problem is, I can't really handle any of them. Pseudephedrine makes me shaky and nervous and paranoid, unable to sleep, and gives me a noticeably irregular heartbeat. It's kind of scary. Most of the straight antihistamines just make me sleepy and clumsy. You'd think that the two would cancel each other out, but they don't... I just wind up sleepy and insomniac, walking around crashing into things because I can't see straight nor stay in the same place for any length of time, and unable to read, listen to music, or carry on an intelligible conversation because my short-term memory is zapped. (I found that out the hard way once when I took a Sudafed.) In short, restless, bored, artificially stupid, and utterly miserable.

Frankly, in this case, the symptoms are easier to cope with than the alleged cure.

Glenn, how soon do you need that Reactine? I'm quite broke at the moment, but I'll have money within 2 weeks, I figure.

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The '-D' stands for 'Dammit!'

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