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 Posted: 02/09/08 - 23:42 Post subject: Allegra and Depression, Weight Gain, Fatigue |
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| My experience is that YES, Allegra absolutely causes depression. In late '02 I became very ill & was eventually diagnosed w/food & environmental allergies &prescribed allegra 180mg. Initially this was a god-send but soon after starting, in 2-3/03 I began to experience severe pain, fatigue, confusion and thoughts of suicide. I did not make the connection because the drs I saw for these symptoms all told me that won’t be the cause, I must have something else wrong or was just imagining my symptoms. The drs (I saw a total of 9 in 5 yrs) attributed my depression & other symptoms to not being able to handle the stress of daily life as I'd I been so sick & my job was so stressful & I needed more time to recuperate from being so sick. To cut down on "the stress" I dropped out of UCD, got divorced, stopped socializing, stopped working out and quit my job. After starting allegra in 2003, I went from being a very active & organized person who loved to go out, learn new things, meet new people, successfully employed making $75-150k a year, traveling all over the world, to an overweight(50lbs), unemployed, confused, unmotivated recluse who was weepy, tired & jumpy all the time. FedEx guy knocks on the door & I jump & run to my bedroom. I'm too scared to answer. Unreasonable, I know, but that is how it's become since I started this drug. All the doctors I saw kept reinforcing that my depression was just me and since I had ups and downs….meaning on the drug I was a confused, paranoid, hopeless, zombie, off the drug I was a functioning human being, they considered that maybe I was bi-polar. (I was only taking allegra about 9 months out of the year as my allergies were seasonal.) I saw a new doctor to get testing for everything to figure out what was wrong with me & stopped taking 3 weeks ago & it's been like driving out of fog. I went back and also tracked when I was feeling good and matched it up to when I was not taking allegra and when I was feeling bad and matched it up to when I was taking allegra. Since I stopped taking, the muscle & joint pain has decreased to almost being gone, constant hunger, swelling in face & hands, headaches & confusion is gone. I actually was able to read a sentence & remember what I'd read! A year ago I was telling people how wonderful allegra was & how much it helped me clear up my allergies. It did do that w/o a doubt, but at what cost to the rest of me? I'm so angry at the myriad of doctors I reached out to for help who blamed my "stressful lifestyle" & depression for my symptoms instead of their being a side effect of the drugs they prescribed &/or knew I was taking. |
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