Both of my kids were just switched from Claritin to Zyrtec for their allergies, as Claritin was having the same apparent effect as a sugar pill might have done.
Dweezil has has a signficant improvement of his symptoms. Moon Unit had to be taken off the stuff after 2 days because of a paradoxical reaction: the stuff is supposed to make you sleepy. It had the opposite effect with her, triggering major insomnia for 2 days.
So - no medical advice wanted here, we’re handling that aspect with appropriate medical personnel, I’m just curious to see if anyone else here has seen a reaction like this in themselves or others. Google doesn’t turn up much (except for the version that includes a decongestant, which doesn’t apply here).
I don’t think she’s a mutant, just a minority. My kids both take Zyrtec and have been doing great for several years. We actually switched to giving it to them at night a couple months ago as we finally realized it might have been making them sleepy during the day time.
The night time cough medicine that makes most kids sleepy makes my 4yo girl hyper. And it’s one of the possible side effects noted on the bottle. It’s the cold medicine that has the “D” in the name, I can’t think of the medicine name right now…well, maybe it’s the “DM” one… <thinking,thinking>
Every person has their own unique side effects to medication. For example, when I take Ambien, I get wired!
I get amped-up by some antihistamines, too. Caffeine (esp. cola) tends to put me to sleep.
Lots of variation in reactions, even in the same individual from one time to another. I’ve had antihistamines make me sleepy and I’ve had them keep me awake. No predicting.
From what I’ve read, children and the elderly not uncommonly have quite different reactions than young or middle aged adults do.
Midol gives me pretty much every side effect on the Midol package! Thing is, i’ve taken those active ingredients in other drugs before, so it’s not a reaction to the drug, it was a reaction to one of the excipients! I still don’t know which one - it hasn’t happened since with anything else, but I avoid Midol at all costs!
I also get migraines if I take the placebos in birth control packages, but no migraines if I skip them. Which is why I switched to Alesse 21 from 28!
OK, so she’s a mutant, but the odd antihistamine reaction isn’t a symptom of it
I’d actually heard of the paradoxic reaction to Benadryl (DaddyTimesTwo, that’s probably the ingredient in the “nighttime” cold medicine you mentioned, may be labelled dipenhydramine) - in fact the first time we gave Benadryl to Dweezil it didn’t make him sleepy. It just didn’t occur to me that the Zyrtec might behave the same way.
Benadryl doesn’t make me sleepy either, just turns me into a foul-tempered zombie Brains… braaaaiiiiiinnnnnnssssss. Needless to say, I don’t use Benadryl any more.
KGS - bizarro. Hey, at least if you need help sleeping, you don’t need to see a doctor, just run down to the 7-11 for a Big Gulp!
Moon Unit might be a mutant, but you probably won’t know until she’s taken more drugs. If it’s possible to have a paradoxical reaction to a drug, odds are about 1 in 3 my mom will. She says it’s something that her doctors make notes of in her charts since it happens so often, and her regular doctors (you know, the ones who don’t fob her off on a nurse on a regular basis) over the years have warned her of what the paradoxical reactions might be so she can watch out for them. Some people are just like that.
When she was 3, she had amoxicillin for some illness (ear infection?) which made her, for the entire 10-day duration, psychotic. 2-4 violent tantrums a day. Started the day she started the medicine, stopped the day she stopped it. So I shouldn’t be too surprised the Zyrtec had an odd effect. She’s just plain wired differently.
Weird reactions in children is pretty common. I had an eye operation when I was about 8 or 9. Due to a reaction to the pre-med I apparently started fighting with the theatre staff while supposedly anaethesised. Several doctors have mentioned that this is common in surgery with children.
