(no subject)

[phineasjones]

Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are closely related drugs with actions and side effects similar to the hormone epinephrine (adrenaline).

i knew it! when i was a wee one with asthma, they were forever shooting me full of adrenaline and it made me feel awful, much in the same way taking pseudoephedrine does now. i just read a list of 'minor' side effects and yeah, they're all the ones i experience. weird. so, i guess i'm sensitive to it. i would like to file an official complaint here... i mean really. someone out there said, let's give this one nasty allergies, defective sinuses and some mild asthma and then make her hyper sensitive to the one drug everyone uses for congestion. grr. it worked out much better with my hair. i've always thought that was well planned - have a narrow head. but my hair is so huge and boofy and curly, no one would ever notice my narrow head. see, there can be logic here.

Comments

[holdenrevisited.livejournal.com]

I've always been perplexed by medicines that give you side effects that are exactly like the illness you are trying to rid yourself of...such as your Claritin and other allergy medicines that "may cause stuffy head, fever, ichy eyes and other cold like symptoms" It's just wrong!

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

yeah. totally wrong. and i was just reading this stuff does it's thing by reducing blood supply to certain areas... ? why is that a good idea? so then, when i stop taking it, the blood comes rushing back and i suffer? who's dumb plan is this?

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Yeah, pseudoephedrine is nasty. I can't handle it either, and got pumped full of it when I was a kid. Benadryl seems to work pretty well for allergies; although it will make you sleepy, at least you won't be climbing the walls! Hope you feel better soon.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

you know, i've never tried benadryl... and yeah, i'd take drowsiness over frickin heart palpitations any day. thanks for the tip.

[zionsstarfish.livejournal.com]

Pseudoephedrine can also cause rebound congestion, if you take it longer than... say... 3 or 4 days. Which is a fancy way of saying yeah, it can cause exactly the thing it was trying to relieve. Drugs are fun!

(hope you feel better soon)

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

that's exactly what i was dealing with this morning. the other side effects wore off and suddenly i was way congested. after only 1, 2-hour pill. grr.

never again!

drugs

[wildgreentide.livejournal.com]

At work today, one of my co-workers was telling me about her housemate who got stung by a bee and swelled up and had to go to the emergency room. The doctor there told him to take Benadryl, but he was skeptical. So he said, "Well, Benadryl is an antihistamine, but if my body's producing all these histamines in reaction to the bee sting, isn't that actually a good thing?" The doctor said, "Huh, I never thought of it that way."

(By the way, have fun in Philly!)

Re: drugs

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

To the poster above, yes, you want to take an antihistamine in response to a histamine-producing sting, because it isn't the sting that is actually bothering you - it's your bodies overreaction to it. Some people get a sting or bite or poison ivy or what have you, and just feel a tiny bit of discomfort. Some people who are really allergic, swell up like balloons, and can even die if their breathing gets constricted (I have that reaction to bees). That severe reaction is caused not by the allergen, but by the reaction of your body's immune system. Overproducing histamine is what CAUSES the runny nose, itching, watery eyes, hives and swelling. In other words, your body reacts to an extremem, and can cause you big trouble. Blocking the histamine blocks the symptoms.

Re: drugs

[wildgreentide.livejournal.com]

Ah--thanks for clearing that up. (It made sense at the time when she told me, and then when I was typing it out, I thought "wait a minute..." but posted it anyway.) But the point of the story still stands, which was that the doctor was totally unhelpful when asked that question. Clearly the poor bee-stung guy knew no more than I did, and the doctor should have explained the situation to him like you just did to me.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Speaking as one of those people who does the clinical studies of drugs (in fact Claritin is a drug I worked many tedious years on), we have to write down EVERY single thing that a person experiences when taking a drug in a study, and report it. Therefore if you were one of our test patients taking Claritin before it went to market, and you came in and said you had a headache, we have to write down "headache".

Now, if you poll the population of people reading this LJ right at this moment, I can guarantee you that at least 2% of them have a headache right now and probably have been nowhere near Claritin.

So when you look at a drug label and you see all kinds of side effects listed, it's important to keep that in mind. Common ones like headache, dry mouth, drowsiness, insomnia, that are listed for just about darn near every drug in the world, may or may not be drug related - but the FDA requires them to be listed just the same.

Ephedrine, pseudephedrine, ephedra, all pretty much the same thing. That's what puts the "d" in decongestant :)

And yes, to the poster above, you want to take an antihistamine in response to a histamine-producing sting, because it isn't the sting that is bothering you - it's your bodies overreaction to it. Some people get a sting or bite or poison ivy or what have you, and just feel a tiny bit of discomfort. Some people who are really allergic, swell up like balloons, and can even die if their breathing gets constricted (I have that reaction to bees). That severe reaction is caused not by the allergen, but by the reaction of your body's immune system. Overproducing histamine is what CAUSES the runny nose, itching, watery eyes, hives and swelling.

/end science lesson for the day

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

So when you look at a drug label and you see all kinds of side effects listed, it's important to keep that in mind.

that totally makes sense... and that's why i feel this raging sense of injustice. because i actually do experience all of those frickin things as a direct result of the drug. when i'm stupid enough to take it, it makes me want to curl into a ball and die. and then when it wears off, i feel far more congested than i did before taking it. and it really seems like the ONLY option for decongestion... and i am always congested. ::sigh:: i once went to my local 'natural' drug store, determined to find some 'natural' remedy. and in the allergy/asthma/congestion section, every single product contained ephedrine. i cried. 'tis not for me to breathe freely, i guess.

well, i did breathe freely back when i took steroids on a regular basis. but that's scary too. alas.

hope i'm not boring you with my sinus woes. *g*

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

Yep that's called rebound effect and it's quite common.

You know what is good? Eucalyptus or tea tree oil in a facial steamer or a hot cloth. Cleans you right out.