Having been a sufferer of Hayfever for years I’ve tried many remedies and have had varying success. This year I had zirtek (cetirizine) as its non drowsy. I took it sporadically for a bit and then as the summer was kicking in had one a day as prescribed. This was the same for my 11year old daughter.
After a few days I found myself angry and depressed and knackered. I had no reason for any of this as nothing else had changed. My daughter was vile, tantrums, shouting, lashing out and being horrible. I really did think her head would spin round.
We’ve both come off the tablets and are putting up with the Hayfever (better now as the tree blossom has gone). Both of us are happier and more level headed. My daughter has returned and doesn’t really remember why or how she was like she was.
Went to google and there’s loads about mood swings etc.
Just a heads up for anyone on it and feeling a bit weird.

Not the best PSA ever. Its a common KNOWN side effect of such tablets.

Known rare side effect of Zirtek tablets, as mentioned in the PIL. You did read the PIL, yes??

Rachel

For those of us funky who didn’t know, I’d say it was a useful PSA.

Cheers that’s good to know.

Always worth reading the advice leaflet when starting new meds.

Side-effects

Drowsiness is a significant side-effect with most of the older antihistamines although paradoxical stimulation may occur rarely, especially with high doses or in children and the elderly. Drowsiness may diminish after a few days of treatment and is considerably less of a problem with the newer antihistamines (see also notes above). Side-effects that are more common with the older antihistamines include headache, psychomotor impairment, and antimuscarinic effects such as urinary retention, dry mouth, blurred vision, and gastro-intestinal disturbances.

Other rare side-effects of antihistamines include hypotension, palpitation, arrhythmias, extrapyramidal effects, dizziness, confusion, depression, sleep disturbances, tremor, convulsions, hypersensitivity reactions (including bronchospasm, angioedema, and anaphylaxis, rashes, and photosensitivity reactions), blood disorders, liver dysfunction, and angle-closure glaucoma.

Gee whiz Drac, you are waking the path of self righteousness tonight eh?

So what can we get all women to stop taking to cure their mood swings? Oxygen? 😆

Very useful PSA you just saved my 10 year old daughter some hard timrs

Thanks, nick, it’s new to me. I’ve been taking various hay fever meds long time and didn’t know. Mostly because I daren’t read the warnings. And that bad stuff only happens to other peple, right?

Wrong.

Gee whiz Drac, you are waking the path of self righteousness tonight eh?

FFS! I give out medical advice for a living, that’s what my post was. The more people that read the advice leaflet of meds the more they would understand when to spot problems.

I’m not being righteous at all.

Drac is a Doctor? Dr AC?

I found I had this problem with cetirizine, but I’m fine on loratadine.

Just maybe worth trying some different meds to see if you can get the benefits without the drawbacks…?

Nice one, I didn’t know.

Sorry to the ones who were obviously disgusted at my lack of trust in the drug info. For your information if I read all the info on all the drugs I’ve taken to keep me on this planet I’d be qualified in legal jargon speak, probably still reading too. To those who’ve found it useful, cheers, that’s why I mentioned it.
To Rachel, rare known side effect, bit of an oxymoron when two people out of two in the same family suffer from the same side effect!

Try loratadine (the other non-drowsy drug). May still screw you up but could be the answer if you just have a specific reaction to cetrizine.

For your information if I read all the info on all the drugs I’ve taken to keep me on this planet I’d be qualified in legal jargon speak, probably still reading too.

Yup you’re right definitely give you mood swings.

Loratadine does **** all for my alergies, you may as well write PLACEBO across it for the defference it makes (in fact according recent studies that might it more effective). I’m on Cetirizine all the time due to various alergies. Which may explain a few things… I wonder if I’d stopped taking them would I stop generally hating everyone and everything? Or would the unstoppable snotiness just made me generally full of rage for different reasons?

Anyone remember Triludan? Now THAT was a wonderdrug of an antihistermine. Petty it gave you heart desease or whatever. 😕

rare known side effect, bit of an oxymoron when two people out of two in the same family suffer from the same side effect

Not an oxymoron at all. It’s very probable that two people with similar genetic make-up would suffer similar side-effects from a particular drug.

I take chlorphenamine, one of the older generation meds. Good for treating inflamed bites, but terrible for its main side-effect of drowsiness and I also get night terrors with them.

Thing about the side affect list in drug packaging is they pretty much all drugs have horrendous side affects for some people. As a quick check just Google ‘<drug of your choice> + side affects’ and you’ll find 100s of pages.

Yup they do true footflaps but certainly worth taking heed of the advice leaflet and watching for the main ones.

ok DRAC that raised a chuckle.
moses, the oxymoron bit included the word rare…
I put it on here as people may or may not be in the same boat. take it or leave it.
thank you for the suggestion about lorotadine, will give it a go.

ok DRAC that raised a chuckle

😀

Ignore the haters, this is a good PSA.

Also for people saying read the labels, have you actually bothered to read them yourselves? If you have you would know that pretty much any and every medication has almost the same list of side effects.

Also for people saying read the labels, have you actually bothered to read them yourselves? If you have you would know that pretty much any and every medication has almost the same list of side effects

Yup I do. And yes many do share the same symptoms but does that mean you shouldn’t read them? But yet some how it’s Ok for a PSA, why would you need a PSA if every medication has almost the same symptoms?

They’re there for a good reason too, some of the effects can be more adverse than making you have ‘mood swings’ so you need to look out for them.

Or try Acrivastine – seems to be a Benadryl-only API at the monent, so it’s not as cheap as cetirizine or loratidine, but it seems fairly effective for me. Also worked well with the wife when se had really bad hives.

p.s. – read the PiL or look up the SPC online for side-effects…

Yup I do. And yes many do share the same symptoms but does that mean you shouldn’t read them? But yet some how it’s Ok for a PSA, why would you need a PSA if every medication has almost the same symptoms?

Becuase if every medicine had the same generic list of side effects, they would appear indiscrimiante and so meaningless. Much like the most unlikely things which may contain nuts. It starts to look llike some cover all notification and becomes meaningless.

@nickhart sorry to hear you’ve been having problems with cetirizine.

I’ve suffered hayfever for 38 years now and tried most prescribed and over the counter remedies. Non worked (including courses of jabs). I was prescribed Zirtek when it was a POM. It was a miracle cure for me. I’ve been taking it ever since and have experienced no ill effects at all. Try something else – others mentioned above may be more suited to you. We’re all genetically different. For some, like me, cetirizine works well.

I hope you and your daughter find something suitable soon. Hayfever is shitty.