Ever since I was in high school, I’ve suffered severe allergies, a trait I inherited from my dad. Pollen, ragweed, animals, dust mites, you name it, I’m addicted to it. For most of my life, I’ve had a persistent low-grade cough from about April to about October.
And nothing I’ve ever tried has worked, except Benadryl, which knocks me out for 14 hours. Not Allegra, not Claritin, not fexofenadine, nothing.
In 2018, I discovered Xyzal (levocetirizine), a once a day antihistamine that, by some miracle, actually worked. For seven glorious years, I’ve been mostly allergy-free, mostly.
Fast forward to last month, when out of the blue I started getting hives on my arms and sides out of nowhere. Careful, systematic experimentation revealed the culprit to be levocetirizine, which still works but makes me break out.
So I quit taking it.
Big, big mistake.
It turns out levocetirizine is physically addictive. And I’ve taken it every single day for seven years.
It also turns out that you’re not supposed to discontinue long-term use abruptly. Apparently once daily for seven years qualifies as “long-term use.”
The withdrawal from levocetirizine is absolutely brutal—anxiety, insomnia, headaches, difficulty breathing, nausea, fatigue, irritability, shortness of breath…I got the whole package, including some of the withdrawal effects WebMD calls “uncommon.”
I’ve been off it for a month now. According to WebMD, I have about 2-4 weeks of withdrawal left.
But hey, at least I’m also having allergy attacks again.
Shoot me now.
Oh no! I wish you well with your withdrawal. It sounds horrible. I hope you manage to find something else that works with your allergies, somehow.
I never knew that, when I came back to the states in 2014 I got a huge supply of xyxal simply because I knew how expensive allergy meds can be in the states, and they worked until I went to the states. Basically the ragweed and cedar that’s found in Austin doesn’t work with anything, not even citirizine.
But I use benedryl because I have high difficulty in sleeping, and benedryl combined with legally prescribed Xanax works real well to allow me to sleep exactly when I need to.
I did not know xyxal has withdraw and I hope benedryl doesn’t. Actually the only withdraw I have with either Xanax or benedryl seems to be an inability to keep to a 24 hour schedule… But otherwise I can simply quit Xanax cold turkey.
Who Says OTC medications are 100% safe?
Franklin, I’m so sorry you’re going through withdrawals. Unfortunately, you don’t really have a choice–hives count as an anaphylactic reaction. If you don’t heed a low grade anaphylactic reaction, there’s a chance that your immune system will kick up the anaphylaxis to a higher level to get your attention.
That higher level could just be weeping hives (hives that turn into open sores). Or it could be anaphylactic shock. Or your immune system could decide to go straight to the nuclear option, which is anaphylactic cardiogenic shock. Immune systems are jerks that way–sometimes they ramp up slowly through stages, sometimes they just jump to the nuclear option and there is no way to know which way your immune system will choose.
My immune system chose the nuclear system for my birthday in 2019. No previous anaphylactic reactions to that particular antibiotic although I had already had anaphylactic reactions to multiple other antibiotics not in the same family. I joke about it but I ended up with some weird short term but not medium term memory, some language processing oddities and lost 10 IQ points.
I miss all of it but over time, what I miss the most is the 10 IQ points. The neurologist who did the diagnostic testing tried to be comforting, pointing out that I still qualified for Mensa. That might have been comforting if large groups of people didn’t make me break out in mental hives. I am still painfully aware that I don’t have the brain cycles that I had before. Or that my internal brain cycle clock is slower. Or something. It’s hard to explain but I am very conscious of the cognitive deficit.
I survived anaphylactic cardiogenic shock because I had the good sense to go into it in a hospital with a nurse standing six inches from my body. If I’d done it outside a hospital, I would have died–everyone who does it outside a hospital dies. If you do it inside a hospital, your chances go up ro just shy of 50% of surviving. I actually survived it twice (the hospital didn’t realise which antibiotic had triggered it, so they hung the next dose as scheduled and triggered a second bout).
I’m glad you’re not messing around with the risk of a serious anaphylactic or anaphylactic cardiogenic reaction. Losing 10 IQ points really, really sucks.
Don’t be like me
I lot of people miss that about allergic reactions. It alarms me when friends who are allergic to dogs or cats have them in the house. It’s like poking your immune system with a stick. With my tomato allergy, I went from “sometimes had a little cough that I didn’t attribute to tomatoes,” to “had what I later learned were hives,” to “woke up unable to breathe.”
*a lot
So sorry! Inadvertent dependencies, ugh.
Seasonal allergies became a thing of the past for me, when I started drinking nettle leaf tea at the beginning of the season. An amateur botanist in our department made a big pot of nettle “sun tea” (steep herb in room temperature water in a jug) because a bunch of us were hobbled by runny noses and sneezing fits.
It worked beautifully for most of us. Some people can’t tolerate whatever is in nettles, but 20 years later it still works.
Virtual hugs!!
Sympathies and hugs 🤗
Oh no! I’m so sorry you’re in a predicament bondage situation – and not the fun kind, either.
So sorry to hear that your allergies give you so much trouble, Franklin. Some years ago, I was tested for food allergies. When I stopped eating the foods I was allergic to, the rest of my allergies – pollen, cats – were also greatly reduced. Just a thought.
I always look forward to seeing your answers on Quora. They are a ray of light in the murk that Quora has become.
All my best wishes!