As a teenager during a nasty bout of the flu, I remember being given a drug called Visteril. I’m probably spelling it wrong. All I remember is that it was for nausea and it burned like hell when they injected it.
I am aware there is a drug called Vistaril, but according to Yahoo, it is an antihistamine given for allergies.
In this thread, however, Joe Mahama declares that there is no such thing as Vistiril or Visteril, but Vistaril is given for both allergies AND nausea.
I suspect he is right, because I can’t see the powers that be allowing two medications to have only one letter’s difference in their spelling. However upon looking at the side effects for Vistaril, it says one of the most common is nausea, which would kind of defeat the purpose.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that it can’t be used for nausea, just because it’s a possible side effect. Check the box for night-time cold remedies (“so you can get to sleep faster”) and you’ll often see insomnia and/or sleepiness listed.
Vistaril is one of the two brand names for the drugHydroxyzine. The other brand is Atarax. It has several applications. Its classification is, indeed, antihistamine. It isn’t used for allergies very much anymore.
It is a mild anti-emetic, as is Benedryl, or, for that matter, any antihistamine.
It also potentiates opiates, making it useful as a post-op medication. It increases pain control without causing as many side-effects as a larger dose of, say morphine.
Since it also decreases nausea, its an all around good thing.
It as an injectable form as well as the little green capsules.
Its good for the chronic itching many dialysis patients contend with. It isn’t sold OTC, I’m not sure why. It will make you very sleepy, but it doesn’t interfere with respiratory function.
Can one of our learned medical types explain why antihistamines help control nausea? During my last pregnancy, I got “all day sickness” in the second trimester and was given a script for Phenergan to be taken when it got to be too much to take, and I was surprised to learn that it is also an antihistamine. Is nausea a histamine reaction?
Just as a reply to the “there can’t be drugs that close in name” comment- There are many drugs with very similar names out there. There is a process now called Tal Man Lettering to avoid confusion with them:
Here are some drug examples with their tall lettering:
Wait, hydroxizine potentiates opiates? Is that why taking it with the Vicodin I was taking for my shingles put me under the table in short order? (I’m finally almost over my shingles, by the way; thanks, Qagdop, for your input a couple weeks back!) Man, that combination knocked me on my ass. And normally I can take small doses of Vicodin without difficulty. This time I was a snoring zombie!
Anyway, the hydroxizine helped the itching, but not as much as the Lidoderm patches that I ended up using. I don’t know about its effects for nausea, though, since fortunately that was a symptom I avoided.
I got to take it in nice little pill form, however, much better than injected!
Actually, I didn’t mean they were the worst as far as getting the wrong/bad drug goes, I mean they’re the worst for mixing up which drug is which. I do drug repackaging, so I look at those names all day long and have to double take so often it’s not even funny.
The only good thing about the Celebrex and Celexa for me is that they’re both still brand name only and have vastly different bottles so I know they by sight.
