peterr@utcsri.UUCP (Peter Rowley) (07/12/85)
I went to a pharmacist a few weeks ago and asked if he knew of an
antihistamine that doesn't cause drowsiness. He recommended Seldane,
which is terfenadine, in 60 mg tablets.
Checking out the Physician's Desk Reference, one finds that Seldane
does indeed seem like a wonder drug for allergies. It has NO known
drowsiness effects. It supposely can cause mild stomach upset and
headache, but is excreted quite completely, over an 8 hr period.
I don't have enough experience with it to be sure if it doesn't
have side-effects on me, but it does clear up allergies quite well
(though not as well as Actifed(R)) and it lasts the advertised 8 or
so hours completely. Actually, I've been happy with taking just one
a day.
While it is available in Canada from a pharmacist without a prescription,
and has been available for a while, this is not the case in the U.S.
I discovered, on a recent vacation, that it has only been available for
a month, and then only by prescription. The review in the PDR is dated
1983, though.
All this makes me hopeful about it, but a bit nervous about being one
of the first users of it. Have any readers used it and found bad effects?
For people used to being zombies from antihistamines, it could be quite
a boon-- provided it doesn't do anything else nasty!
I'll summarize any replies I get.
(Aside, to long time users of Actifed: I saw an English LP yesterday
with a song titled "Actifed Crucifixion" :-)
peter rowley, U. Toronto
{allegra, cornell, decvax, ihnp4, linus, utzoo}!utcsri!peterr