Medicine, side-effects, and differences in Time-Released medicines.

Polecat

Hey there helpers,

looking for advice, preferable from a pharmacist/pharm student if there are any out there.

So, I've been on Allegra-d 24hr for years. I recently changed insurance, and with Allegra-d being available w/o a script, I just want to the local pharmacy and bought some. They only had the 12 hour in stock at the moment, so I bought them.

After a few days, I can't sleep, and I'm literally angry all the time. I can only assume its from the new pills.

So my question is this: Is there that big of a difference on how much medicine is released in a 12-hour compared to a 24 hour? I would assume there is more sudafed (sp?) in the 24, but it has never hit me like this.

Thoughts?

Jasconius

There is a difference in active-ingredient ratio between the two

the 12-hour has more psuedo per mg of fexofenadine, but still the same basic dose of psuedo per 24 hours

so if you're taking two 12-hours a day, you're getting less fexo overall

I'm not sure what the interaction between the two is, but the imbalance may account for your symptoms, especially if your system is so used to the other stuff

you should probably leave a message with your doctor to ask about this

Raif Severance

I think the best way to answer this is with some pictures I made in paint (!).

Here's the 24 hour allegra. Notice you've got one peak then a nice even elimination from the body.



Now with the 12 hour. You can see the peaks are higher and there's two of them (obviously). The peaks also drop off faster than the 24 hour dose.




You're getting the same amount of Sudafed as Jasconius said, but you're getting two "boluses" of it during the day as opposed to the one you were used to. So you had this nice, gradual rise and fall in drug concentration on the 24 hour which is different with the twice a day dose. This may explain why you have the irritability but as you know drugs affect people differently. My advice is if you were fine on the 24 hour I would go back to that. Unfortunately you have probably hit your limit for pseudoephedrine for the month (thanks Meth dealers!) so you may have to wait until next month to switch back.

dlinfiniti

Have you considered maybe taking the regular allegra without the pseudoephedrine? I mean if you don't really have heavy congestive issues, it might just be better. I typically have bad seasonal allergies and it is my antihistamine of choice.

Polecat

Thanks guys! I knew I could count on you!

I do believe the cops will come arrest me if I buy any more pseudoephedrine for the month, so I'm stuck till June... which pretty much means that hopefully I'll be pretty much out of allergy season. I think I'll try out the original allegra... (for some reason i think years ago it didnt work and I never tried it again... but we'll see.

Thanks! I'll close the thread