Category Archives: blather

That time I stopped taking Zyrtec (cetirizine) and couldn’t stop itching

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Sometimes, a title has to say it all. This is really, truly about how incredibly itchy I’ve gotten…as a result of withdrawal from the Zyrtec (cetirizine) I’ve been taking for the last couple of years. (First warning: before you start/stop taking Zyrtec or cetirizine, talk to your doctor. Seriously, that’s what they’re there for.)

Backing up slightly: I developed seasonal allergies somewhere in the range of about 14-15 years ago. I started off with brand-name medicine (Allegra), before they started to make these medicines available over the counter (OTC). When Allegra started having less and less effect on my allergy symptoms (coughing and itchy throat, in particular), I switched to Claritin. When Claritin went OTC not long thereafter, I continued to buy it – but eventually switched to the generic (loratidine). This went on for a number of years until I was able to stop taking these meds entirely, my seasonal allergies having mysteriously stopped after I gave birth to dd. Hallelujah! But short-lived…

After I gave birth to ds, the allergies I so happily lost three years before came back in spades (ugh!) – and that meant getting back on loratidine. Eventually, even that stopped helping me, and I’d wake in the middle of summer nights, when the windows were open, with terrible coughing fits. It was horrible. So, I decided to try Zyrtec – or, rather, the generic (cetirizine). My first impression of cetirizine was that it must be rather powerful, since I practically hibernated the first 48-72 hours I was on it. I was so incredibly sleepy. Once I pushed past that threshold, though, my life got much better. The coughing cleared right up, and I was able to function like a normal human being again. Hallelujah, part two!

Over the past couple of years, there have been times when I’ve failed to take the cetirizine on schedule; sometimes it’s that I ran out and haven’t made it to Target to buy another large bottle of pills. Sometimes, it’s been that I thought I didn’t need to take it. But the coughing always came back, so I would run right back to the cetirizine. It became a “take all year-long” kind of thing. On the nights when I didn’t have my nightly regimen of pills already tucked away (fish oil for my eyes, a multivitamin, iron supplement, and the cetirizine), I’d just make sure to take at least the cetirizine, to stave off coughing.

At my annual wellvisit (physical) a few weeks ago, the doctor told me that she’d rather I switched to Flonase and reserve the cetirizine for when I need supplemental allergy help. Apparently, Flonase takes a few weeks to take effect, but once it kicks in, it’s great. For allergy seasons like we’re having right now, when all the sexy flowers and trees are having sexy flower and tree sex with the pollen, it’s just brutal and I need all the support I can get. So, I got a script for generic Flonase (fluticasone), filled it, and started taking that daily. Since I figured that I should follow her directions to use the Flonase as my primary medicine and reserve the cetirizine for supplemental help, I just stopped taking cetirizine.

And then I started itching. And itching. And itching. And WTH I’m so itchy.

There are no hives, although my skin does get red where I scratch it. This is one of those all-over body itches, where it’s your scalp, your arms, your legs, your belly, your back…everywhere. It’s crazy.

Wondering if perhaps this was something that others experienced, I googled for “zyrtec and itching”. And oh boy, did I come up with a ton of results. There were even stories in things like the Chicago Tribune, where the letter to the health editor could have been written by me. The anecdotal results I scanned last night all came out with the same results: the itching typically runs anywhere from 2-4 weeks long, and there’s nothing – short of going back on the Zyrtec / cetirizine – that will make it stop dead in its tracks. There were some folks who said they just went back to the drug full-time, because they couldn’t bear the withdrawal symptoms; you could tell by their posts that they felt trapped, physically addicted to a seemingly harmless allergy medication that now they can’t (or won’t) stop taking. Some folks have had success with step-down protocols, where they use pill cutters to take limited doses and taper off over a period of weeks. Some have just toughed it out and waited for the itching to stop.

I’m planning to go the latter route, because I’m a stubborn person and really – *$&% Zyrtec and cetirizine. If the only way to get the withdrawal side effects to go away is to go back on the drug itself, then that’s physical addiction and I’m just not having it. This is definitely a great allergy medication, but the side effects of withdrawal are just NOT fun. Of course, I’ll say that many meds have side effects when you’re taking them, so this is sort of like the ultimate bad breakup.

{Side note: it’s also impressive and more than a little frustrating that McNeil – Zyrtec’s manufacturer – doesn’t have a warning saying that this could happen to you. Many online posts I read complained about this lack of information from the manufacturer, claiming that it was fairly reckless of them to know this and not warn people, but I guess they figured that if you have a problem when you come down off their meds, that’s not THEIR problem, that’s yours.}

So, what should you do if you’re on Zyrtec or cetirizine? First off, this is a conversation you should have with your primary care doctor or allergist. Talk with your doctor about whether you need to stay on the medicine. If it’s not harming you and you need it, and your doctor wants you on it: great. If you decide you want to come down off the medicine or swap it out, talk with your doctor about the treatment they recommend for you. Don’t design a step-down plan on your own; do it with your doctor. Don’t whip out a pill cutter and start a step-down protocol without checking with your doctor and being certain that’s what they want you to do. Don’t stop taking Zyrtec or cetirizine without consulting with your doctor. (Note that I had this consultation during my physical; we had this discussion, and I’m acting in accordance with what we agreed.)

I can’t say this strongly enough: HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT WHAT ALLERGY MEDICATIONS, IF ANY, ARE RIGHT FOR YOU AND YOUR CONDITION. DON’T TRUST THE ADS, DON’T DO WHAT I DID JUST BECAUSE I’M COOL AND SEEM TO HAVE MY ACT TOGETHER. DON’T LET DR. GOOGLE PRESCRIBE YOU ANYTHING. DON’T DESIGN YOUR OWN STEP-DOWN PROTOCOL WITHOUT TALKING FIRST WITH YOUR DOCTOR.

The purpose of this post is to serve as a warning to those who are on Zyrtec (cetirizine), who are considering going off it, or who stopped taking it, just to provide some information about what many people (and now I) have experienced upon stopping a long-term treatment with it. Now you’re armed with the knowledge that this could happen to you, as well, so before you start, change, or stop a course of allergy treatment that involves Zyrtec or cetirizine, you just got a new question to ask your doctor.

An open letter to my mom

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You were right.

Well, at least some of the time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

When you think about all of the stuff your mom said to you as a kid that just seemed incredible or downright ridiculous, it’s how funny so much of it actually was her telling you stuff you needed to know – even if it wasn’t what you wanted to hear at the time.

 

If they’re really your friends, they wouldn’t treat you like that.

This is so incredibly true it hurts. I mean, it actually HURTS when you think about all of the time you wasted on people who were toxic, people who made you feel less than you really are, people who only had you around because it served some purpose in their life without providing similar return to you. I’m not saying that you should run your life like a game of “Survivor”, but it is really rather fantastic how many people I used to know that I just don’t even miss, because they just weren’t positive influences in my life. My best friend of 24 years is still my best friend, even though we haven’t lived in the same city for two decades, because even as much as our lives have changed and we have evolved in (sometimes different) directions, we still share mutual love, admiration, respect, and a belief that the other person is *important*.

 

Always GO before you go.

Parents of children really GET this. Case in point: I took ds up to the elementary school on his bike the other day; he biked and I walked. He played for maybe 10 minutes before he suddenly announced that he needed facilities that aren’t open on the weekends. While I give him high marks for being able to hold all bodily functions until we got home, I give myself poor marks for not having forced him into the bathroom before we left. Sure, the school isn’t too far from the house – but this is a rookie mistake. (Right up there with that time I forgot to bring diapers to a well visit when dd was still an infant; that’s a mistake that you only make ONCE.)

 

You can do better.

This applies just across the board. When I think about how things are going at work (extremely well, by the way), I wonder how much of it is luck. I’m sure there’s some karma involved, but some of it is just that I work very hard – and very efficiently – so that I can deliver at a level that meets or exceeds expectations. And I always, ALWAYS, assume I can do better…to the point where people accuse me of being humble when I shouldn’t be. There’s always room for improvement, whether it’s at work, or at home, or in the never-ending fight with my waistline. That’s not to say that I’m at the Marxian level of complaining that the capitalist system sets things up so one can never reach the divine; it’s that I think there’s always room for go beyond where you are. My pie crust could be homemade. I could rely less on boxed and frozen items when cooking during the workweek. I could be a size 8. She was right, though. I really interpret this NOW as “Celebrate when you succeed, and plan how next to exceed.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

So, Ema, the basic point is: you were right. And I’ve learned a lot in the 41 years I’ve been on the planet – but none more so than in the 7-1/2 years since dd made her first public appearance in the delivery room. But you were right.

At least some of the time.

Some days, you just wonder how you got here

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When I was home for several days, fighting off fever, exhaustion and a sore throat that turned out to be strep, I took a whole afternoon off and binge-watched HBO’s “Girls”. I’d heard that it was a good show, and clearly there’s some positive buzz around star/writer Lena Dunham, so I figured that I’d watch a few episodes and see if it was worth giving it a longer look.

Of course it was.

I ended up watching something like 1-1/2 seasons that afternoon, and then I finished off the remaining 1-1/2 within the next two weeks. Somehow, this one show had touched on something that I’d forgotten since “Sex and the City” went off the air: that there is dramedy out there that reminds us of what we once had in favor of what we have now, and how what seemed so awful (or perfect) back then may never have been.

Some of it is parenthood; when you become a parent, your life changes forever. Things that you formerly did (spontaneous travel, spending money wherever and whenever you wanted, etc.) and stuff you previously spent money on (like expensive dinners or event tickets) take a back seat to diapers and car seats. You spend more time at Old Navy in the Baby section than you do in the Womens section, and whether or not you become comfortable with that, it’s part of just how things are.

I have some memories of my twenties, especially before I moved up to Boston, when my Thursday and Saturday nights were spent at Tracks – a long-gone gay club that featured alternative & rave music on Thursdays and drag queen volleyball on any night when it was warm and dry outside. I won’t say that we “did things that would frighten fish” (look it up in “Steel Magnolias”, y’all) – or at least I never did stuff that was frightening – but we partied. A lot.

Even after I moved to Boston, when dh and I were dating (or before then), there was a lot of going out and partying with friends, hopping a MetroJet flight to DC for the weekend to jump up and down at RFK in the Screaming Eagles/Barra Brava section and repair to our friend’s house afterwards to down copious amounts of cava or to a nearby Indian restaurant for curry and Kingfisher. Life was different in my twenties, and seeing “Girls” really reminded me of that.

I have so much sympathy for Dunham’s character, Hannah Horvath. She’s a self-absorbed writer (what writer isn’t self-absorbed?) going from bad relationship to bad relationship, where even the one with the person who she believes is the one is weighed down by his own self-absorption. Your twenties are a bitch. It’s incredible to think that I survived it at all.

Watching a “Sex and the City” episode recently, the one where Miranda finally caves in to the notion of moving to Brooklyn because it’s what’s best for her family, I saw the maturing of a character who really had been self-absorbed for so long. Is that where Hannah could be in 20 years? Is that what I became when I got married and had kids?

That’s not to say that I’m not self-absorbed at times; I like my time to myself and my quiet time. I lived alone for several years before I moved to Boston, and I was rarely truly despondent and lonely. There’s something nice about the quiet of not having someone else in the house. I love having control over the remote, which may explain why I end up staying up late so many nights; even a half-hour of shutting the world’s wants out can be wonderfully relaxing.

I have no regrets as to how I’ve lived my life.

And I suppose, by watching “Girls”, I get a double-treat. In one sense, I’m seeing some amazing writing – very honest, no-holds-barred – and acting that really shows very vividly how wonderful and horrible it can be to be in one’s twenties. In the other sense, I’m getting a reminder of why I do and don’t miss my life from before I got married and had kids. I have no illusions about the joys of travel and a carefree life, yet I wouldn’t trade my kids for anything. I get so many laughs from the jokes they make, so many moments of wonder when I see them surpass expectations for kids at least year ahead of them, I can’t imagine them coming in a distant second or third to anything. They’re not the center of my world – I have a husband, a job, friends…a life. But my kids don’t come in last, and I wouldn’t ever want to go back to traveling nearly every month, because I’d miss them terribly.

By the same token, I’m glad I got to do some of the things I did when I was younger – the travel, the wild oats sowing, etc. – because I’d hate to think that I’d have to wait until my kids were out of college to experience all of that. At that rate, I might never have gotten to it. So, now, I appreciate it more. When I can get out to a movie and/or dinner, it’s more of a hassle but I cherish the experience. That’s why my girlfriend from up the street and I like to go to Lux movie viewings; if you’re gonna do it, DO IT UP.

Here’s the thing: Lena Dunham doesn’t have it all figured out, and neither did Candace Bushnell. But what they wrote (and, in Dunham’s case, acted and/or directed) even at its most ludicrous has an insane ring of truth. Relationships are hard. Experiences are worth having. Children – for those who actually want to have kids – can be a brilliant, life-altering addition. I think the important thing is to live without regrets. Don’t do what you’ll regret later and don’t regret what you have done, because this life is too short to spend it being angry for what you compromised…or the consequences when you failed to do so.

I know how I got here, and I have no regrets. I wonder how many others can say the same?