allergy attack

[cellio]

I'm allergic to Pennsic. (Well, to dust and grass and pollen and weeds and...) So I take Allegra for about three weeks each year to deal with that, but don't take it the rest of the year. (I don't want to develop a resistance to it like I did to all previous allergy drugs save one [1].)

This year I started taking it on Saturday, and then went to Cooper's Lake Sunday for setup. I was fine yesterday, but today I've been congested all day. Mid-day I added Sudafed to the mix; I hope that wasn't bad but I really needed to treat the symptoms. (I take the Allegra once a day and had taken it this morning.) It took about four hours for the Sudafed to produce results.

I think this must have happened in the past, because there's Sudafed in with my use-only-at-Pennsic stuff. Now that I think about it, I remember once calling my doctor from Pennsic to ask if taking Sudafed while taking Allegra would kill me and he said it wouldn't.

I don't know if starting the Allegra earlier would help; how long does it have to be coursing through your veins to lay down a basic barrier against the nasty little allergens? With luck, writing this entry will help me remember next year to start earlier. (I'm sort of assuming that I should be taking allergy drugs (Allegra) and not cold drugs (Sudafed) as a baeline. I don't have a cold; I just have some of the symptoms.)

I should remember to ask my doctor if he can improve on this for me.

[1] Seldane. It worked gloriously, better than Allegra I think, so naturally the FDA eventually decided I couldn't have it.

Comments

[geekosaur]

I recall their recommmending taking it 1-2 weeks ahead, since the time it takes to reach full potency varies. (Of course, they'd also like you to take — and pay for — more of it....)

I also seem to recall that Allegra and Seldane both are metabolized into the same actual antihistamine, but Allegra is less effectively metabolized. (Whereas Seldane is simultaneously metabolized via another pathway to something that causes heart attacks (or was it strokes?) in some percentage of people, or something like that.) I didn't pay too much attention, since it turned out that I don't even digest it. (Oy. On the other hand, it also turned out that antihistamines don't help me, so it's all irrelevant.)

[cellio]

(Of course, they'd also like you to take — and pay for — more of it....)

Yup. And at almost 70 cents per pill just from the co-pay, I can see why that might appeal to them. :-) I think the sticker price for a month's worth of Allegra is over $100, but that was a casual comment by the clerk at the pharmacy and not a real price quote.

I had meant to start taking the Allegra Friday but forgot. I think I started Friday last year and it worked then, but last summer was wetter so maybe that helped with the dust. Next year I guess I'll just take it a week ahead and see if that makes a difference. If not, it may be time to ask Canadian friends to bring Seldane to Pennsic.

Seldane: what I understood at the time was that Seldane interacted badly with a medicine commonly used for heart conditions, but for some reason great big warning stickers saying "don't take with [whatever]!!!" were deemed insufficient. I don't recall hearing that Seldane itself posed a risk, though perhaps I just didn't hear all the problems with it.

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

As a result of the drug-drug interactions Seldane and Hismanal exhibited, there was serious research done into what drugs also cause Q-T prolongation. Neither Seldane or Hismanal alone were risky if taken alone, but people rarely take just one pharmaceutical product...so the drugs came off the market.

[cellio]

people rarely take just one pharmaceutical product

That makes sense broadly, though I find myself wondering how many people only take allergy medicines. (Ok, technically I take more than one pharmaceutical -- but only one that's ingested. I suspect the eyedrops for glaucoma aren't relevant.)

Thanks for the information. I'd forgotten what the specific issue with Seldane was.

[sethcohen.livejournal.com]

Allegra is what Seldane is metabolized into. There are drug-drug interactions that cause Q-T prolongation (a kind of heart arrythmia) that is bad enough in some people that it can kill them. This only happens with Seldane, not Allegra.