Astelin symptoms and conditions

Wow, is all I can say. I just found this website this past Thursday morning before going to my Doctor. I am off it now and back on Diovan thanks to this forum. Here's my story... I switched from taking Diovan to Lisinopril-hctz about 3 months ago because it was way cheaper. I started getting a mild runny nose, and cough that didn't go a way.It was getting harder to sleep as the days went by. I tried sinus, allergy, cold, and cough medicine with nothing helping. I went to a different doctor at a local after hours clinic and they gave me a steroid shot for allergies. I have never had allergies all my life. I am 36 yrs old and work outside for a living. I knew something was wrong and started to get a little worried. I went back to see my main Doctor on May 5th and he switched me from Lisinopril-Hctz to 30mg of Lisinopril because I thought I was going to the bathroom more often. I questioned the side effects again and was told you just get a dry cough and what I had is allergies and gave me a prescription for Astelin. Not long after, my hell began. I started having the EXTREME coughing, gagging until you vomit, stuffy runny nose, and I was starting to get a little anxiety. Not to mentioned scared at this point. I could not sleep at night due to the coughing fits. I would sleep best after I had some drinks at night, so that became my sleep aid. I got a respiratory infection late May and took a Z-pack and Lohist 12d. I got a little better. This past Sat I woke up with a sore throat and something like a cold. Sunday morning I woke up with the sore throat that was worse and a panic attack! I was freaking out, pacing around wanting to go to the ER. It took 3 hrs to calm down and fell asleep. Sunday night anxiety kicked in again at bed time and I didn't know why. I just knew something was very wrong with me and mentally I was losing it. I took some melatonin and still couldn't sleep because of anxiety and coughing. Monday I was afraid of what was going on mentally and started to question if I was safe to be by myself if a bad panic attack occurs. I scheduled an appointment to see my doctor on Thursday. Hoping I could make it till then. Monday night I took a melatonin trying to stay calm and keep anxiety down. Could not sleep, bad coughing and gagging, but started to wind down about 1:30 am when it started. I was laying down making my ears pop/click and for some reason I could not make my right ear pop before my left ear. All the sudden anxiety kicked in full force. It took a long time to calm down that night. I finally did get my right ear popping before the left one. Its sounds funny but it wasn't at that time. It was official, I have lost my mind. I did not sleep at all wed night before my appointment. I did find this website that morning before going and felt better after reading other posts. After talking to him I switched back to Diovan. He still was leaning towards allergies though. He told me to take benadryl at night and claritin during the day and my coughing may take about 4 weeks to see improvements. I had my hopes ups on Thursday, but after reading a lot of posts here I am still discouraged about the outcome. For those of you that had anxiety attacks at night, how long before those stopped? Also how long before the coughing and gagging starts to slow down or end? Is there anybody that stopped taking Lisinopril, but symptoms have not improved? I am glad I found this forum and happy to be back on Diovan. Right now with the way I feel with the sore throat, coughing, gagging, vomiting, sinus pressure, anxiety, I am still unsure on the outcome and what may come next....

I am a part-time professional singer and attorney. I developed an odd cough-variant asthma this winter at age 42 -- it had scary breath shortness and wheezing plus lots of phlegm coughed up. I had never before had the shortness/wheezing/asthma, though I have always had allergies and occasional bronchitis following a cold. The asthma/allergy specialists put me on Advair 500 twice a day with each attack, plus an oral prednisone burst/short taper, nebulized (not just rescue inhaler) albuterol (beta 2 agonist), and antibiotics (a different one each time). I also take Claritin, Rhinocort and Astelin for my allergies. I had four attacks of asthma this winter that were treated this way; after the fourth, they put me on Advair 250 maintenance for a month. With each attack, I would get hoarse, have trouble sleeping, and get odd muscle cramps I never had had. The hoarseness was worse each time, but I was able to sing through it at my regular gigs. I attributed the side effects to the prednisone. With my fifth attack, they told me to ramp up the Advair to 500 and do all else the same, but as an experiment to see how this would alter those side effects, I decided to treat it with everything but the prednisone. The hoarseness, sleep trouble, and muscle cramps were all much worse. I found this site, noted the recommendation of several other singers to try Asmanex instead of Advair, and asked the docs about it. They agreed that all these symptoms could be related to the Advair and gave me Asmanex 250 twice/day instead instead of the Advair, plus all the other meds for the attack. The symptoms went away within a week, although it took a little longer for me to get over the asthma attack this time. I am extremely grateful to this site and all the users posting comments. I can sing again, sleep again, and exist without weird muscle cramps during treatment of my asthma. Thank you very much.

i've been taking the 100/50 advair for years now. i have only ever taken one dose a day, frankly out of cheapness. i was unwilling to take anything that expensive twice a day! in the beginning of my asthma experience, i was also put on singulair but again, when i filled the prescription and saw how much it cost, i never refilled it (boy, am i grateful for that after reading what people have posted about it!)
i cough up lots of yellow glom from my lungs and i blow similar stuff from my nose. a CT scan showed my sinuses to be completely blocked with polyps and the doctors said that if i had the surgery, i could get off advair.
in dec of 2006, i had the surgery but within weeks of going without advair, my lungs were tight again and i couldn't breathe and had to do a week of prednisone to open things up. back to advair for maintenance, but this time the surgeon added 2 nasal sprays (veramyst & astelin) and other inhalers (ventolin & maxair), plus wanted me to go to an allergy doctor for immunology injections.
the surgeon also told me that polyps could grow back in a month after surgery! wish he had told me this before the surgery. i certainly knew that they could grow back but i figured i'd have a good 20 years! now i'm told that i need these 4 other medications, plus advair, plus allergy shots to keep my polyps from growing back!
i still have no sense of smell, i still sniff, cough up glom and have constant sinus infection, just like i did before having a $25,000 operation!
however, i don't take the other medication- just the advair once a day or once every other day.
i never thought i had any side effects until i started reading here. happily i have not gained weight. but a few years ago, i did notice a lot more hair in the shower drain. and my voice is often hoarse. i didn't connect this to advair use until i read people's complaints here.
i am determined to get off this crap!
i have a resistance pump to exercise my lungs and strengthen their capacity.
also trying a dry salt inhaler and various supplements.
this is a great site. we need to get all our complaints to the FDA- they have to stop allowing drug companies to profit while using us as unsuspecting guinea pigs

While I am sure that Singulair has adverse effects for some children/teenagers/adults, I took Singulair for 2-3 years (until my asthma symptoms improved to the point where I didn't need to take it) while I was a kid and had no adverse side effects. Started back on Singulair in April after having severe reactions to my new puppy (I am now 21). Since then, I really haven't had any side effects at all. I agree that they should black box Singulair and possibly not prescribe it to some children/teens, but for some people (like myself), it works, and shouldn't be taken off the market completely.

I took levaquin 750mg as prescribed yesterday, after leaving my doctors office at 330pm ( june 18th). along with calrinex d (1tab) and a tsp of tussionex suppension syrup and 4 nose shots of astelin in increments of two over a 4 hr period of time. I was awake a majority of the night unable to sleep. But had some bouts of sleep. This morning (june 19th) I awoke at 930 am forced awake due to an appointment, and took 550 mgm of levaqin and the array of other drugs, around 12pm I noticed a headache and believed it was due to the exertion of coughing so much, my appetite is non-existent and around 6pm I felt flushed and sweaty, however this feeling subsided. I am now in hyper drive, I want to fall asleep but when I do my throat has the sensation of being choaked and then I have this odd gush or air emmited nasally which awakens me from the doze. My left corotid arrtey was tender and my heart is palpitating. While my sinus infection is almost gone I do not think I will be continuing this medication. There will be a call made to my physician at first reasonable light, I am sure I will be awake.

Hi, I'm a 25 year old male. I've had severe seasonal allergies for as long as I can remember. I'm to the point where the coming of spring usually means that I'm going to be visiting the emergency room inside of a few weeks. I've been involved with Zyrtec since the spring of 2003. During that season I experienced what could only be described as a near complete nervous break down. I had an issue involving administration at the college that I was attending losing some paperwork regarding a semester withdrawal ... as a result I ended up with 7 F's and owing the university around $4,000.

I ended up crashing. My family describes me as the guy "with a big heart" ... but I began getting into screaming matches with my parents that ended with me breaking down and weeping / sobbing almost hysterically while holding the door shut to my bedroom. I became incredibly "anxious" (that's how my families General Practitioner {GP} described it), but I'd describe my behavior like more along the lines of a parody of a guy that just smoked a ton of REALLY cheap pot and therefore began to think that everyone was out to get them and that no one had their best interests at heart. My GP decided that I must be on the verge of a nervous breakdown and put me on paxil in an effort to calm me down. In a way it helped keep me calm and drastically reduced the extreme emotional spells that I was having. I pulled myself off of Paxil (for another slew of side effects that I'll be posting on that tab) during the late summer and fall when I don't have as severe an issue with allergies and as my season approached I found a new doctor and when I brought up how I had eventually decided Zyrtec D was making me feel he told me that I was right on the money. He ran through the almost all of the side effects that are listed on this page and I was floored ... I couldn't believe that no one had told me about them. He put me on Astelin and since then I haven't had any issues. As a matter of fact, I'm totally psychologically sound now and I haven't experience a "heart flutter" since ... where as a few years ago I was on the verge of committing myself while on Zyrtec D.

As a little note: I'm currently taking Astelin along with the OTC Zyrtec on a once a day basis and the only side effects that I've seen show back up are: slight paranoia, a loss of energy and general virility, and a significant weight gain (about 20 pounds in the past 3 months that could be attributed to my near complete loss of energy) ... which is an ENORMOUS improvement coming from the prescription strength Zyrtec D.

I'd also like to mention that I don't have any disorders like bipolar disorder or severe depression ... but when I take Zyrtec I acquire a lot of the symptoms associated with those medical conditions ... the symptoms slowly subside when the season draws to a close and I stop taking the medication.

I was diagnosed with allergy induced asthma in my freshman year of high school. I was given Advair for a couple of weeks to help deal with a major attack I experienced. After seeing an allergy-asthma specialist I was told to continue with the Advair until I could get my AIA under control. I was also placed on Singulair, Flonase, MaxAir AutoHaler (for emergencies), Acuneb (also for emergencies) and I was already on Zyrtec and an eye drop Patanol. At the time my Zyrtec and the Astelin I was on were not enough to treat both the allergies and asthma. I also began taking allergy shots. I was an athlete playing fast pitch softball, conditioning P.E. including weight lifting and running, and I was also doing aerobics in my regular P.E. class. I swam often, was an active outdoors man, rode horses, and ate a fairly healthy diet. I could not figure out why I weighed 145 lbs at 5'2. My doctor said I was healthy and that I shouldn't worry about my weight but now that I am a 19 year old 5'3 weighing 130 lbs I realize that my weight gain was not normal. Although I do not play softball right now, I practice belly dancing and yoga. I often go hiking, running and swimming and I walk about 30 minutes a day to get to and from classes at LSU. I worked hard to keep a healthy diet, and exercise often so that I would not gain the dreaded freshman 15. It took me two years to get down to 130 lbs and I never attributed my weight gain and inability to lose weight to my Advair until I was off it for almost a year and then had to start taking it again to deal with a flare up. In less than two weeks I had gained almost 10 lbs and was feeling miserable.After I got to college, I would often go for runs to help keep myself in shape. I got to the point where I had to quit running because I was always short of breath and I would have severe asthma attacks. I was on all of the above mentioned medications and often on Prednisone for sinus infections. I also experienced the dry cough and the tightness of chest. I experienced almost daily headaches -some were attributed to stress but I am not sure if the Advair caused the others. I was also very groggy, dizzy, and EXTREMELY moody. I disliked the way I was feeling while I was on Advair and took myself off it earlier than I was recommended. Since then I have been feeling a lot better and I am able to control my occasional flare ups with zyrtec and flonase and occasionally singulair if I feel my asthma acting up. I got dizzy easily for a few weeks after I took myself I was not told by my doctor that I needed to rinse my mouth out to avoid thrush, nor was I told about the possible weight gain and some of the other side effects. I am going to stop taking Advair unless I absolutely need it and I am not going to stay on it for long, especially if I start feeling like I was before.

I am SOOOO glad I found this site. My daughter is 6 years old and has been on Zyrtec on and off since she was 18 months old. About two years ago we added in Singulair. Two weeks ago she was diagnosed with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder and they want to start her on meds for that. I got to thinking about when all her behavior and academic problems started and it was shortly after we started the Singulair. Before the Singulair she was a brilliant, outgoing, well-behaved happy little girl. Now she has trouble remembering short and long term, trouble concentrating, extremely fidgety, impulsive, can't complete anything she starts, extreme persistent stomach pains, diarrhea, occasional vomiting, and extreme frustration. I stopped both the Zyrtec and Singulair 4 days ago and am now reconsidering any meds for ADHD. I am going to wait and see how she does without Zyrtec and Singulair in her system. I am excited to see if there is an improvement! I had no idea these two drugs were so dangerous!