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Rich

Rich

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 11, 2002
Messages
1,314
Location
S.E. Mi
with the vast experience of our membership, I hope some can comment on this one.
I have been diagnosed with a rare skin condition called dermatographism. It is a condition that is triggered by pressure on the body from simply sitting or laying. It causes very severe itching, something like having your body scraped by a razor blade.
The treatment for it is to take an anti-histamine which I am doing. It is called All Day Allergy Relief and is kind of like a generic for Zyrtec. It is working........but I believe causing some bad side effects not listed. These consist of unexplained weight gain and muscle and joint pain. Has anyone experienced something like this?
Thanks in advance,
Rich
 
I take zyrtec, now I take the generic I buy at Walgreens. I sure would love to think the weight gain could be from the zyrtec. I exercise like a crazy woman and I am always hungry. I am going to the doctor on Thursday and he has been giving me a cortisone shot every 6 months because of the muscle ache. I am certainly going to mention this to him and maybe just go off that stuff if that is what is causes. I am going to google it when I am done. Thanks for the post Rich.
 
Thanks Deb,
This may get interesting. You may want to go to askapatient.com and check the comments regarding Zyrtec. A number of them say what we are experiencing.
I have always been on the thin side my entire life and could never gain weight no matter what. So this is really bothering me, not to mention it is very uncomfortable.
As a side note my wife and I are from Cleveland and wondering how things are going down there these days.
Rich
 
Ooooo that sounds nasty Rich! So sorry to hear you're going thru that. Perhaps your dr. can change the Rx to something else that doesn't cause all these side affects & still gives you the relief you need!

Good luck & get better soon! :)
 
Thanks Norma,
I hope so too and will see him the end of this coming week.
This is the second med we have tried so far, the current one being OTC.
This condition really is nasty and only affecte about 4% of the population. Lucky me!!
It is so sensitve that you could write your name on my back with your finger, and it would show up bright red!
I have tried various creams and so forth which help but don't control it.
I guess it's just part of growing old which sucks but does beat the alternative.
Sure has been a lot of weird things happening since I got into my seventies.
Rich
 
If it's the same active ingredient as Zyrtec, you might consider taking the original, vs. the generic, and see if there's any change in your symptoms.

My personal opinion is that not all generics are as good as the originals. In the first place, they're often manufactured now in places overseas that can't easily be monitored for reliable quality or content. Secondly, their only requirement is usually to have the same amount of active ingredient as the original, not be in the same medium or have the same release rate.

In cases like warfarin, where the main ingredient is not expensive to manufacture, there's not much gain in cheating the product contents. However, recall the heparin problem last year, where the manufacturers in China were replacing the heparin with a similar, but entirely ineffective chondroitin compound that was much cheaper (and also caused some deaths, due to allergic reactions). And that was a hospital-applied, prescription product used in critical health crises.

How do you tell? I don't honestly know.

Best wishes,
 
Rich said:
Thanks Deb,
This may get interesting. You may want to go to askapatient.com and check the comments regarding Zyrtec. A number of them say what we are experiencing.
I have always been on the thin side my entire life and could never gain weight no matter what. So this is really bothering me, not to mention it is very uncomfortable.
As a side note my wife and I are from Cleveland and wondering how things are going down there these days.
Rich
Click to expand...
Just to let you know, things in Ohio are SNOWY! Probably the same with you. I am going to talk to my doctor about this Thursday. I have noticed that it is worse when I try and go to sleep. I hate to say it but some nights I take ambien so that I will sleep because the ibprofen doesn't do much. Let me know if you fined out anything and I will do the same. You have something worse than me. Take care Rich.
 
Thanks Deb,
Yeah we have a lot of snow here also.
I see this doctor on Friday and hopefully we can work something out.
You take care as well and stay warm down there.
Rich
 
hall said:
I take zyrtec, now I take the generic I buy at Walgreens. I sure would love to think the weight gain could be from the zyrtec. I exercise like a crazy woman and I am always hungry. I am going to the doctor on Thursday and he has been giving me a cortisone shot every 6 months because of the muscle ache. I am certainly going to mention this to him and maybe just go off that stuff if that is what is causes. I am going to google it when I am done. Thanks for the post Rich.
Click to expand...

Deb,
The weight gain and hunger is from the cortisone. That stuff works for what we need it for, but the side effects are troublesome. Hot flashes, weight gain, isomnia, to name a few.
 
Rich said:
Thanks Deb,
Yeah we have a lot of snow here also.
I see this doctor on Friday and hopefully we can work something out.
You take care as well and stay warm down there.
Rich
Click to expand...

Rich,

What about asking about lyrica, it's for nerve pain, a newer drug. Lyrica

Neurontin is another choice. Docs use these two sometimes for chronic pain. Neurontin

Of course if you take coumadin, have to watch for interactions. I'm wondering if the itching really is nerve symptoms and not allergy.
 
Hello Rich,
Sorry to learn about your "itching". Have you tried Aerius antihistamine? (It has a picture of someone hang gliding on the box). Over the years I have used a lot of antihistamines to control eczema itch. The antihistamines that work the best for me have drowsiness as a side effect. You have to consider blood pressure meds with them. Hope this helps, anything is better than scratching until you bleed to gain some relief. Been there, done that for years.
 
My thanks to all for your responses, I will bring all this up at my appointment later this week. It is definitely dermatographism. The first anti-histamine he gave me was one called Atarax(hydroxizine) and it worked like a miracle. But as was mentioned it has pretty strong drowsiness which lasted almost 24/7, I guess it has a tendency to do that in older people. It also caused really bad muscle and joint pain. So we switched to the current OTC one I'm now taking. It has similar side effects but not quite so severe, but the other things I mentioned are not good. I may end up going back to an OTC anti-itch cream and just live with it. CVS has a anti-itch cream which works pretty good and it's not expensive either.
Rich
 
Just a little update on my problem.
Saw the doctor today and he wants me to try yet another anti-histamine. It also lists a lot of bad side effects. Things like weight gain are certainly part of it, but the worst is a fast pounding heartbeat including some irregular beats. Those of you with a mechanical valve can probably imagine what sleeping is like with that going on all night!
In the meantime I'm looking at natural supplements that may control this without all the side effects. The one I'm interested in is called Quercetin(500mg), it supposedly would help block the histamines that cause this condition.
However I have heard it might interact with Coumadin, but I can't find any info on that.
Can anyone out there give me a hand with that?
Rich
 
Thanks Bina,
I have used that for some time but it doesn't list things like the supplement I'm looking at.
 
Thanks Bina,
That could very well be the interaction I heard about.
 
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