ZYRTEC Reviews (CETIRIZINE HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 2.0 (1816 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare ZYRTEC with similar:
Type: Over-the-counter Drug
|
Results are sorted by Age from youngest to oldest (reviews with no age reported listed first). 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 |
| 1 | Allergies | WORST MEDICINE EVER. I am so glad that I found this website, although I had to search google to find it. I have been giving this to my 5 yr old daughter and I will stop immediatly. She has been crying when she goes to preschool for no reason. She has been having temper tantrums and just so moody. I feel so bad that I've been punishing her for her bad attitude, taking away cartoons, early to bed, taking away toys, etc... She tells me the reason she cries is because she is afraid that her grandma isn't going to come back and pick her up. I was so confused by this. She has been in preschool for over a month and hasn't ever felt this way. She didn't go to school on a Monday due to having the flu over the weekend and I took her that day to the doctor to deal with the allergies she has been having. My husband takes Zyrtec and it has worked well for him, so we started my daughter on it. I started on Monday evening. On Wed morning at preschool is when the crying started. This has been happenin | F | 5 | 2 weeks | 3/28/2007 | 1 | Seasonal allergies, hives | My pre-school age son undergoes a complete personality change on this stuff. From sweet and chatty to aggressive, moody, and irritable. On it three days and his teacher said he was like a different kid. It gave him nightmares, too. Took him off and back to normal. We'll treat his allergies with something else. Better the hives than this. | M | 5 | 1 weeks | 5/3/2005 | 1 | Allergies | Dear Families with children experiencing side effects from Zyrtec, I am seeking legal action. Please contact me if you are interested! NEW EMAIL ADDRESS. | CLASS ACTION POSSIBILITY! | F | 5 | 2.5 years | 7/20/2006 | 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 | My 5 year old daughter has been taking this for years. She has been having emotional meltdowns. I will tell her to brush her teeth or get dressed and she will start screaming and crying. This can go on for up to one hour, she can not stop. When I ask her why she is acting like this she says she doesn't know. Lately she has talked about wanting to hurt herself. She says that we hate her and don't love her. This child is so loved and gets lots of attention. We had even made an appointment with a therapist. My husband mentioned her medications and when I googled on side effects of zyrtec I found that we are not the only ones going through this. I have contacted my daughters doctor and we are stopping the zyrtec! | F | 5 | | 4/7/2007 | 1 | seasonal allergies | wow...if ir were not for this website I would still be thinking that my son was just a very aggresive child | he is 5 and been taking zrytec since he was 18 months..he has been in speech therapy for 2 yrs..he is very aggresive goers from 0-10 in 10 secs....been off of zrytec for 10 days wow what a difference...my husband and I have such an awesome child...this stuff robbed us of a child... | M | 5 | 3 years | 4/16/2006 | 1 | allergies | Irritable, sadness, poor impulse control, crying spells, insatiable appetite. | My son is 5 and began taking Zyrtec 2 weeks ago for allergies. The first two days I was giddy with happiness because my sneezy, itchy snotty, miserable son had started waking up bright eyed and bushy-tailed. Then I realized how much his behavior was changing. His teacher started saying that he couldn't seem to control himself in class. Couldn't make a decision during choice time...on and on. She said it "wasn't like him" and wanted to know what was going on different. He also started crying more often for no reason and having strange dreams. And last, but not least, he started chasing and scaring our cat who he used to be so gentle and kind with. When I asked the doctor about the side effects, she was very blasse' about it. After reading the other comments about Zyrtec and kids on this site...I will never give it to him again. DO NOT GIVE YOUR CHILDREN ZYRTEC. IT IS NOT WORTH IT!!!! | M | 5 | 2 weeks | 10/18/2005 | 1 | Allergies | Dear Families with children experiencing side effects from Zyrtec, I am seeking legal action. Please contact me if you are interested! | CLASS ACTION POSSIBILITY!!!! | F | 5 | 2.5 years | 5/1/2006 | 1 | enviromental allergies | Mood swings, aggressiveness, tearful, negative, abdominal pain, extreme loss of appetite | After 7 months of successful zyrtec use my 4 yr old began to exhibit changes in his mood/personality. He was very negative, at times aggressive and yet tearful, emotionally unstable. We thought it was a phase, growing pains, etc. He began to complain of stomach pain and had no appetite. He was on the verge of weight loss. His grandmother questioned whether the Zyrtec was upsetting his stomach. Prompted by her theory I searched the internet and found this site. The comments here blew us away. We stopped the Zyrtec immediately and the there was a dramatic change the following day. We had our son back. I have been told by our dr. that Zyrtec, unlike Claritin, crosses over to the CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM. Please consult with your pediatrician about other options. DO NOT ASSUME that your child is just going thru a phase. PLease talk to everyone about this - our info has already benefitted someone third hand thru my son's pre-k teacher ! | M | 5 | 8 months | 3/3/2006 | 1 | Allergies | Anxiety, depression, anger | My 5 year old son started taking otc zyrtec when he was 3 due to allergies per the doctor's suggestion. His allergies would lead to recurring sinus infections. While it seemed to help with itching and hives, it didn't help very much with the allergy/sinus symptoms. I would usually give the zyrtec to him as needed but the pediatrician said to start giving it to him daily. As soon as he was taking it daily, I started noticing changes in him such as irritabilty, crying over little things all the time, huge increase in separation anxiety, being scared of noises and darkness, and depression. I was getting concerned due to the comments he would make... "I hate my life." "I wish I didn't have a life". "I hate school". "Nobody likes me at school". "I hate my life". He also would start following me everywhere. Won't let me out of his sight because he says he's scared. Clings to be when I drop him at daycare when he was fine before. Although I am not 100% sure it is from the Zyrtec, I am taking him off immediately after reading all the posts about the bad side effects. I was not told to look for mood changes due to the zyrtec so had just chalked it up to him being a child and going through changes. I stopped the zyrtec yesterday so I'm hoping he will revert back to his happy and secure self. | F | 5 | 1.5 years 5 mg 1X day | 7/18/2012 | 1 | Terrible side effects | over excitement, rage, violent behavior , mood swings, Anxiety, separation anxiety. Racing heart, stomach ache, crying for no reason. | After being on Zyrtec we noticed a change in behavior, our 5 yr old became aggressive hitting and screaming crying over little things, It was thought at first he was just acting out. The next day after each out burst he was back to his normal docile self. After taking the drug he again became extremely agitated and violent. Stated didn't care if he lived or not. His behavior was extremely disturbing to us . I have experience in dealing with adults with mental health issues and have never encountered an adult with this much anger and rage. Taking him off this drug Today after reading more post we aren't alone in this belief that Zyrtec is the problem. | M | 5 | 6 months 5 ml prn 1X day | 8/31/2013 | 1 | Allergies | My daughter just started taking Zyrtec. Today the school called and said she was having a nervous break down. She is not the same kid. She is depressed, has anxiety, and talking about things a child her age should not even remember. I feel horrible for giving her this drug. She keeps saying "mommy I'm sad inside." | I called the doctor and he said to take her off of it immediately. Why do they prescribe it if there is this many problems???? | F | 5 | 13 days 5mg 1X day | 5/11/2010 | 1 | Allergies | aggressive, hyper, angry, violent | Zyrtec worked good for my sons allergy symtoms, but not without HORRIBLE side effects. In just a couple of days my son became a completely different child. | M | 5 | 3 days 1/2 t 2X day | 4/28/2010 | 1 | Allergies | My 5 year old grand daughter had this prescribed by an allergist who wanted her on it full time. I'm an RN and was quite unhappy about putting this child on anything year round....her allergies are minor. She has taken it on and off since she was three. When she took it a couple of months ago we noticed a sudden and very disturbing change in her behavior. She changed from a happy, delightful child into an absolute beast overnight! Totally out of control, very argumentative and unpleasant. Her mother and I were talking and I asked her if there was anything that had recently changed. She reminded me that she had just started her back on her "medicine". I did some research and we were horrified at what I found. We immediately stopped the drug and within 2 weeks she was back to her normal sweet self. In retrospect we think there were various times in the past she had exhibited the same out of control behavior while on this. We now think she was not "going through a stage&quo | F | 5 | 1.5 years 10mg 1X day | 3/15/2010 | 1 | seasonal allergies | Our high energy 5.5 yrs old son became irritable, moody and clumsy. We are used to his high level of energy but his normal "ready to learn" behavior at pre-school radically changed 2 weeks after he started the medication. For the first time his teacher complaint about my son not listening, ignoring her and taking one bad choice after another. Behavior at home was not much better, since he's always been so active and he has a little brother, it took me a while to realize how out of control was his behavior. I can't believe our DR would prescribe this med without a warning. I am thankful for all the entries, it is important to share this kind of information. | M | 5 | 3 weeks 5ml 1X day | 2/10/2010 | 1 | eczema & itching | Our son (age 5) was put on Zyrtec to control his itching, which would improve his eczema. We saw amazing results the first week and were very pleased with it. After that week, he developed a severe cough, sore throat & severe headaches. Has miss school several days due to the headaches. We skipped the medicine for a few days and he is back to himself. Won't be giving it to him anymore. | 5 | 20 days | 1/27/2010 | 1 | My son's pediatrician reccomended | My 5 year old son took it and by the third day his behavior was very strange and he had this perpetual sad or tired expression on his face. He was very moody. Just asking him the wrong question would create an angry response. He became whiney and clingy- very unusual for my son because he is generally very independent and cheerful. Where he is generally understanding and forgiving, he was verbally resentful towards me. By the end of day 4 I could not think of anything that would create such a DRASTIC and absurd change EXCEPT something new. I decided it was the zyrtec and googled side effects. Ta da, There are way too many children under 7 years old with these side effects. | M | 5 | 4 days 5 mg 1X day | 4/5/2010 | 1 | Seasonal Allergies | I have been giving this medication to my 5 year old son for his symptoms associated with his seasonal allergies.. after a month of taking the meds I noticed he started sleepwalkin and then later got depressed and at times would tell me "mom, i'm just sad!" I really didn't put it all together until i came across this website.. he will stop taking Zyrtec as of today!!! | M | 5 | 90 days 5ML 1X day | 10/15/2010 | 1 | seasonal allergies | anger, shouting outbursts, obsessive thoughts, long uncontrollable tantrums where he acts possessed and is unable to control is body or stop the tantrum | It took about 5 weeks for the side effects to build to where I was going to contact the school social worker, although his teachers said he was doing fine at school. Didn't think of the medicine right away because it wan't an immediate reaction. But then I thought I'd check if it could be the allergy meds he has been taking. Thank goodness for this website & comments. VERY HAPPY to report that 24 hours after his last dose he was soooo much better. 48 hours and I have my little boy back. I can hug him without him growling back at me. I just hope there are no lasting effects. He is still taking Flonase for allergies. | M | 5 | 6 weeks 5mg 1X day | 4/1/2011 | 3 | bad allergies/prevent ear infection | My son is having rapid cycling mood changes, to the point of non-provoked violent outbursts, anger and not being able to get him up in the morning, to at the snap of a finger, sweet as pie. He also is ravenously hungry all the time. Eyes dialated, says no one loves him, says he hears "a bear growling in his head". We are trying get him assessed by a psychiatric doctor for bipolar disorder or some other explanation for his extreme behavior and moods and help. After reading this forum, I am taking him off TODAY, however he suffers from chronic painful ear infections. This medicine is the only one that has helped him and we've tried them all. His doctors say it can't be the Zrtec that is doing this to him. I don't know what to do now...:-( | M | 5.5 | 6 months | 10/16/2007 |