ZYRTEC Reviews (CETIRIZINE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 2.0 (1816 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare ZYRTEC with similar:
Type: Over-the-counter Drug
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Results are sorted by Date added. Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 |
More on ZYRTEC: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR ZYRTEC | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 5 | Enviromental & pet allergies | I was drowsy the first few weeks I took Zyrtec but that went away once my body adjusted to the medication. | I have suffered from year-round allergies & asthma most of my life. As I have gotten older, my symptoms have worsened to include skin rashes and chronic sinus infections in addition to itchy eyes, congestion, and a sore throat. After allergy testing, my Doctor recomended Zyrtec because it is better for pet allergies & skin reactions then other allergy meds. I take Zyrtec twice a day, every day. I also take Singular every night for my asthma but it has a great side-effect of also helping with the allergies. During the spring and summer months, I subliment the Zyrtec with Flonase which is working out great because it really helps my eyes and nose from going crazy when seasonal allergies are high. Although taking all these meds may sound expenisive, I am probably saving money since I don't get sick as often and need to see the doctor or take time off of work. | F | 25 | 3 years | 8/20/2005 | 1 | allergies/congestion/ itching/rashe | Our 5 year old son has been on zyrtec off and on since 1 y/o. His dose was increased to 10mg/day for worsening symptoms in the spring of 2005. He started becoming increasingly angry, irritable and anxious. It got to the point that he wanted to hurt himself, run away, hurt us and he became a totally different person. He would cry so hard and ask us why he was so angry. Physicians told us that children with allergies tend to have behavior disorders. He started counsiling, we kept food diaries, sleep diaries, looked at everything he did to find a cause for his behavior. Finally we found this web site and found all of the other children who are reacting the same way to zyrtec. We took him off of his zyrtec and singulair immediately. Within 3 days he was a different child. You could see happiness in his eyes. He laughs again, he can concentrate - before he couldn't sit still to play with cars or do a dot to dot. Now he can. The transformation is amazing. Not one physician ever told us to watch for this potential side effect. He lost almost a year of his life and maybe more because of this drug. After two weeks he is back to his old self. The little things that would set him off into a violent tantrum are now no big deal. My goal now is to let as many people as possible to know about this side effect so that parents don't have to search like we did. We have no doubt that he would have ended up in special ed or labled as the child with the behavior disorder. I would be happy to talk to any concerned parent about what we went through. Please e-mail me at [email protected] | M | 5 | 4 years | 8/20/2005 | 1 | allergies | weight gain | my son started taking it 6 months ago and gained a lot of weight. Initially I thought I would just give it to him for a month in spring to help him with his allergies. Then when he stopped taking zyrtec, he suffered and was very irritable. But now I am going to take him off of it any way. I wish he never took it. | M | 8 | 6 months | 8/18/2005 | 3 | Allergies | I know a common side effect is drowsiness. However,I find that I am suffering from insomnia. I also have an increased appetite causing weight gain and have experienced problems with my cycle. | My doctor put me on this drug to control my allergies but told me to take as needed. It worked for me. But I think I will stop taking it and see what happens. I'm not comfortable with the side effects I am experiencing and the comments I have read about the problems associated with discontinuing use. | F | 40 | 2 weeks | 8/11/2005 | 3 | inside and outside allergens | taking a whole 10mg pill left me feeling drowsy and out of it, i found by splitting it in half and only taking onehalf per night, i was ok been doing this for 1 year | I recently started taking onehalf am onehalf pm during bad pollen season spring and summer and i was fine, no effects. now all of sudden i'm waking up feeling drugged and out of it; sometimes just feel wierd all over; took Claritin for two days to experiment and seemed better but then my teeth and nose started hurting like a sinus infection coming on. i went back to one half tablet zyrtec, didn't feel drugged but not myself. i will talk to dr next visit to decide what to do . been on Allegra and claritin so many yrs that they just don't cut it. what i really wanted to comment on is the itching. I thought i was the only one who had extreme itching when off antihistamines. i can't go off. I really think going off zyrtec is worse than the others. i went off Allegra yrs ago for allergy testing and it was bad but bearable. a yr ago after i had just started zyrtec, i had to go off for 10 days to complete allergy testing, well, it was so bad i would cry everytime i had to take a shower or wash my hair, it was bad. and it didn't get better. i do think your body changes after being on the antihistamine. i rated it a 3 because i'm not sure about the side effects, but it does help my allergies. | F | 48 | 1 years | 8/8/2005 | 2 | pet & mold allergies | Unexplained weight gain (4 pounds in 2.5 weeks) - no change in my diet or exercise, constant sugar/carb cravings, irritability, depression, extreme drowsiness in the mornings even though I take it about 7pm. Has also completely thrown off my fertility signs (I practice natural family planning and need to track temperature and cervical fluid). | Helped a great deal with my allergy symptoms, but not worth the side effects for me. | F | 26 | 3 weeks | 8/5/2005 | 1 | allergies | dry skin, uncontrollable, angry behavior | We put my son on Zyrtec this spring for allergies and his allergies seemed much better but he did start to have more behavioral issues. I didn't make the connection to Zyrtec until we had to take him off it for a week to have allergy testing done. When we put him back on it again, he was absolutely a monster to deal with, culminating with him slugging a child several times at school (this from a boy who has no access to tv, movies, and doesn't even know what a gun is). I was so releived to find this website and realize that it might be the medicine and so angry that my pediatrician never warned me about these side effects, which they only admitted to when I called to ask. | M | 3.5 | 4 months | 8/2/2005 | 2 | allergies/sinuses | very irritable, anxious, depressed, dry mouth(very thirsty) | my boyfriend who is 33 started taking zyrtec and within a week my very caring and understanding guy became very irritated with me and he was angry about everything. he finally told me one day that he thought something was wrong, that he felt depressed and very irritable with everything- work, his daughter, me. we suspected it might be the medicine because a guy at work told him that when he took zyrtec is made him mean. needless to say i read all the other comments on this site. he quit taking it yesterday. | M | 33 | 2 weeks | 7/27/2005 | 1 | post nasal drip | my four year old son was drowsy, coughed a lot in the morning, yelled out many times in his sleep and cried a lot during the day. The worst was he sneezed a lot and had a constant runny nose!!! Before he went on this medication, he was dry faced... | Our doctor prescribed Zyrtec to my son because he cleared his throat a lot probably due to post nasal drip. He sneezed occasionally. Zyrtec has the opposite effect on him, making him sneeze a lot and exhibit a runny nose. After only two days, I am discontinuing. I'd rather have throat clearing and the other mild allergy symptoms my family experiences then put up with the side effects of this medicine. | M | 4 | 2 days | 7/10/2005 | 1 | allergies | I am trying to take my 6 year old son off of zyrtec due to negative side effects, he has been on it for one year and every time we try to stop , he breaks out in terrrible abdominal hives and persisitent itching.It is as if his body is now dependent on it. He never experienced hives prior to the zyrtec use and I feel it is just another bad side effect we were not warned about. | M | 6 | 1 years | 6/30/2005 | 4 | animal and mold allergies | None until I decided to try and stop using it - now my hands and feet are itching and I am scratching everywhere!! | F | 50 | 8 months | 6/20/2005 | 1 | Allergies | We gave Zyrtec to our 3 year and she turned into a little monster, kicking and hitting. After about a month a light went on in my head, oh my god it's been about a month since we started her on Zyrtec. Thats when we looked on the net and found this site, after seeing the same stories we took her off of it and within a couple days she was a little angel again.. | There should be a HUGE warning label on this stuff for children. When my daughters cute smiles and funny looks came back it brought tears to my eyes.. I would not give this to my children again if was the only thing on earth to stop their runny noses. | F | 3 | 1 months | 6/16/2005 | 3 | Allergies to Dust and Dust Mites | Totally sleepy. Had a hard time getting up in the morning and took a two hour nap during the day. I never take naps during the day. Feel very drugged and exausted. | F | 27 | | 6/14/2005 | 1 | Allergiesn and Sinus Problems | Utter exhaustion. Drugged feeling, always slightly dizzy. Feel disconnected from everything at times. Outbursts of anger.I first took this drug when i was 15, it worked well for awhile and i don't recall having fatigue as a side effect. I do recall a lot of anger and depression to the point where the doctor wanted to treat me for it but i didn't want to take any more pills. I thought i was depressed because of a broken ankle, not my allergy pills, maybe i was wrong. At one point after returning from a doctors visit finding my ankle was still getting worse i threw my crutch like a javilin at the wall in my house making a large hole. I never had those type of outbursts before Zyrtec. I got off zyrtec the following winter when i kept gettign sinus infections, my depression problems vanished and i was normal again. My ankle was healing and we attributed it to that. | Three weeks ago i had a bad sinus infection and i was leaving to Germany and the doctor gave me augmentin and i asked for a strong allergy medicine because my pollen and grass allergies can get bad in Bavaria. I recieved Zyrtec the first couple of days i felt fine. When i arrived in Germany (4 days after starting Zyrtec) i felt REALLY jet-lagged. It never got better. I can barely get up, i feel drugged and dizzy. I went to the net to research what was up and am thanking God i found this site. Last night will be the last dose i ever take! | M | 18 | 3 weeks | 6/14/2005 | 3 | 9 month old taking for allergies | Drowsiness at first, but now seems to make her irritable/agitated. | My daughter has been on Zyrtec since she was 7 months old for allergies. Nothing else would work. Benadryl caused her to break out in hives and made her wired, she's also allergic to pseudoephedrine, and Palgic doesn't seem to do anything at all. At first, it knocked her out at bedtime. She slept soundly through the night for the first few days. But since then, she goes to bed and sleeps for about an hour, and then she's up and down constantly. She also rolls and tumbles while she's sleeping. She seems so irritable and agitated. I'm glad to hear this from other mothers. I'm going to stop it to see what happens. The only bad thing is that it has actually helped her allergies and congestion. | F | 32 | 2 months | 6/13/2005 | 3 | congestion and headaches | I have been very sleepy, I still got headaches but fewer. I still was congested even though I didn't know how much until I went for a ct scan. It showed me fully congested in all sinuses(all areas gray). I am now on strong antibiotic with saline nasal washes with afrin(5 days of afrin) and 14 days on Augmentum 1000 mg two at am and two at pm. Now I have decided to stay off of zyrtec and I have been itchy all over my body. This happened to me another time I decided to stop for two days I was itchy all over all day long. After restarting I was ok. | I am not sure what happened since I've been on zyrtec for 3 years thinking it was helping me. This itchiness has never been mentioned as a side effect for stopping the zyrtec. Are there many others experiencing this. All I know is that I will never resume with zyrtec again, knowing that I will be itchy if I stop. It's not worth it. I have to find something else??? | F | 54 | 3 days | 6/13/2005 | 1 | mild to moderate hive on hands | After one dose of zyrtec-d I felt like spiders were crawling on me. Had a massive hive outbreak all over, esp. my face and neck. Took 2 days to abate (before my hives lasted just an hour or two). Became extremely senstive to cold (fan blowing on me from car A/C caused huge mottled red rash on my arm and neck for three hours. My doctor did NOT warn me of any side affects. | I'm going back to Claritin and benadryl. They didn't work perfectly, but were good enough. It's ironic that the medicine I took to stop the hives made them a hundred times worse. | F | 32 | 2 days | 6/11/2005 | 1 | baby measles | My 2 1/2 year old son was given this medication by his Doctor for any itching that was associated with the rash he had from the baby measles (Roseola). I gave him 1/2 tsp one time. It literally turned into the devil. He screamed and cried for no reason. He had violent outbursts where he would try to hit at us. I couldn't believe that my toddler was acting like this. That this medicine could actually change his behavior in such a way the it scared the crap out of me. He would just start 'freaking out' and then he would be saying 'Hey Momma' and smile at me. Does anyone remember the 'EXORCIST'??? | I do not recommend this drug for children of this age. I will stick with Benadryl. | M | 2 | 1 days | 6/10/2005 | 4 | Allergies | The first few months I had had no side effects. I needed Zyrtec everday though for my severe allergies and it worked like a dream. However, recently I had been having violent dreams, depression, and weight gain. I have not changed my diet and I exercise for about 90 minutes a day. I am on no other medication. However the Zyrtec really does help with my allergies. | F | 18 | 1 years | 6/7/2005 | 1 | For allergies, hives | Was taking for seasonal allergies and hives of unknown causes on my hands/wrists. After taking Zyrtec my entire body broke out in a bad case of hives. The same thing happens for me with Allegra. Now I am scared to try anything else! | I used to take it and it was fabulous. Maybe something in my system changed to make me react so strongly to it? | F | 30 | 1 days | 6/6/2005 |