I know, you’re not my doctor. I’m curious about your experiences, though.
If you’ve taken a drug for your allergies and it made you tired, did this side effect eventually go away, or did it persist the entire time you took the medication?
I started taking Flonase again in February and found myself exhausted for almost the entire two and a half weeks I took it before deciding to stop and see if the exhaustion persisted once I was no longer taking it. It didn’t. Unfortunately, it did a better job on my allergies than what I’m taking now (Nasacort), so I’m curious if I started taking it again if there’s hope that it will stop making me so damn tired eventually.
I find it odd that it does make me tired now because I took it during college and it didn’t then. Nor do most other drugs like Benadryl cause sleepiness in me even though they do in so many other people it’s also used as a non-addictive sleep aide. The only other thing I’ve ever taken that made me sleepy is Tavist-D which I don’t think it made anymore.
So, how about you? Did the sleepiness side-effect eventually go away after long enough, or did it persist?
Zyrtec wipes me out. My doc had me on 5mg (child dose), taking it at night and I was still sleeping through my alarm in the morning.
I stopped taking them on a regular basis a few years ago and just take them on as needed now which is usually at some random time during the day. I’ve found that if I take it with a caffeine pill* it doesn’t make me at all tired.
*I never, ever, ever drink coffee and rarely consume anything else that has caffeine in it so these are my only source of caffeine. However, since if have such a low tolerance for caffeine, if it’s after about 4 or 5 in the afternoon, I can’t take it or I’ll be up in 2 in the morning. Maybe not with the Zyrtec in my system as well.
Zyrtec wipes me out, always. Benadryl does for about the first 4 days of killer allergy season, then I can take it with no side effects, except killer thirst. The others either don’t work or don’t make me drowsy. Or, both!
My understanding is that somnolence as a side effect very often subsides from medicines, with allergy medicines being one of the fastest to subside. It’s why Benadryl makes a lousy extended sleep aid. Four to five days is how long it usually retains the effect.
That said, Flonase doesn’t have somnolence listed as even a rare side effect, so that may not actually be the issue.
Years ago, when I took pseudoephedrine on just an occasional basis to combat sinus headaches I could count on having to lay down for about an hour. I would sleep lightly, then when I would wake up, my headache would be gone. It was like magic! (Actually I’m serious, it really did seem like magic. I’d spent years being told my behind-the-eyes, teeth-too-long headaches were the result of [a] needing glasses, ** getting used to my glasses, [c] needing stronger glasses, [d] ok, maybe it isn’t your eyes, let’s try getting rid of your wisdom teeth.)
Gradually it got to where I didn’t fall asleep when I took it, but I still wouldn’t trust myself to drive. Nowadays I take a daily 12-hour morning dose of Zyrtec and I don’t even notice any drowsiness–but if I have to take a second dose at night (during certain pollinations/weather conditions), I can count on it keeping me up until the early hours of the morning. I suppose if I did the second dose every day that effect might go away eventually.
I’ll be darned. I just took Allegra for the first time last night (eyes, nose, face being itchy and irritated all week) and I felt crabby and hungover most of the day. Was wondering about that, since it’s supposed to be non-drowsy. Just took a half-pill tonight, since it did help the symptoms…