These comments are made for the purpose of discussion and should NOT be used as recommendations for or against therapies or other treatments. An individual patient is always advised to consult their own physician.
[posted 04/19/2000]
Question: I have a question concerning the drug hismamal. Ive been taking this medication for years. It workd wonderful. no side effects for me. But the manufacture has taken it off the market, and now my doctor has tried me on several medications. they are not the same. claritian gives me the hive and makes me neverous. zyrtec just doen’t cut the mustard, if you know what I mean. You have to a take a larger dose and then you are very sleepy all day. That doesn’t work when you are an active mother of four. So could you supply me with some info on hismanal. It would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. I have many many allergies to medications and other envirmental and food allergies.
Answer: You can get all the available information on hisminal from the manufacturer, Janssen telephon number 800-Janssen. But, it is off the market, so of little use. Allegra is the only one of the newer selective anti-histamines you haven’t tried. What are you taking it for? Maybe there are other treatment options.
SSRIs and Hisminal [posted 7/30/98]
Question: I am currently taking Zoloft for depression. The clinical worker I see showed me an artical on the dangers of combining SSRIs with hisminal. I am having a lot of allergy problems and have a strong family history of asthma. What would be safe to take with the Zoloft?
Answer: News to me, can you refer to where she saw the information? However, I would try Nasal steroid sprays, Nasal cromolyn sulfate (now available OTC).
Grapefruit Juice as a Contraindication of Hisminal [posted 7/16/98]
Question: I read an article in the paper recently which named drugs
with reduced effectiveness because of grapefruit juice.
I take Hisminal, one of the named drugs.
Can you tell me whether there is substance to this report?
If so, is the solution to avoid grapefruit juice completely?
Answer: Only while concurrently taking Hisminal is this in question.
