Does Fexofenadine (Allegra) cause depression?

No, I dont think so. I am using it for a long time and my daughter is using it and we have no psychological difficulties at all. You should see is there something else in question? Maybe he is having some other problems. Also check if he is taking some sleeping pills, pain killers or muscle relaxants because they can make him sleepy.

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.

I went from cetirizine to fexofenadine because cetirizine was causing mild depression and mental lethargy... I just couldn't be bothered doing anything, and I did have thoughts of leaving my wife and child and just walking off into the sunset.

At the same time, I would say I couldn't feel any really bad emotion either... so I guess as well as suppressing my allergic responses it was supressing my emotions too. o.O

It was only when I came off the drug at the end of the hayfever season that within 2-3 days I felt great. Like a blanket had been lifted. Everything was fun again!

This is a real nuisance, as both drugs mentioned are the best antihistamines you can get ( at time of writing and to my knowledge ). I always ask my Doctor each year if there are any new drugs, but it seems that research into this isn't so great any longer as the market is saturated with options, and it seems most people are fine on these drugs... or think they are(!)

Its more like a downer actually, most anti histamine meds are like that.

I bought my allegra meds online onthe site is great for online transactions.

Absolutely YES!   It was assuring to read that others are having the same experience of depression while taking fexofenadine.   I went from happy as a lark to feeling like my life was over in a very short period of time while using fexofenadine.   Once I stopped taking it, in a matter of days, I was back to my happy self.  Quite amazing how something like this can affect you so much.  One of the other side affects I had, that no-one has mentioned yet, was very lucid dreams ... and dreaming outside of the normal REM sleep time.  

I also know that telling your doctor means getting a sideways glance, and nodding just to keep from saying what they really think ... it's not your imagination ... this is a very real side affect ... an easy test is to stop taking it (if you can) ... and you will see very quickly that your mood and mental state will change.

I've been using Allegra for a month. It does make me depressed but in an indirect way - my energy level is significantly lower than before so that I am too tired to do anything to cheer myself up. I had been playing 2-hour basketball game every other day but now I am exhausted in 30 minutes. I don't want to watch TV or play video games due to physical fatigue but results in mental depression.

I know these are old-ish entries, but I did find them doing a search about antihistamine-related depression, and maybe someone else will be looking in the future, too. 

Absolutely!!! I had never taken Allegra before this past Thursday, and by Sunday I was lyong on the sofa considering all kinds of horrible things. Ay MD who is dumb enough to tell you that *any* medication has "no" side effects should have their license revoked. I'm an RN and I learned in nursing school, and later in graduate level pharmacology that ALL meds have some kind of side effect. Never again will I take Allegra.

I googled depression and Allegra and found this discussion because I knew someone else has experienced this. My personality is not overly cheerful in general but I started taking Allegra about a week ago and I would say I experience major depression within 1 day. I try to take as few medications as possible but my allergies are terrible this year and needed to remedy it. I will not take Allegra or any other similar medications again. I am positive this medication messed with my head and caused some good fights at my house! 2 days after taking my last pill I am back to normal. Depression should be in the warning!

wow..... I was diagnosed with celiac not too long ago and was already battling depression and anxiety from the mal-absorption of the food i was eating. Before i was diagnosed i thought all my symptoms of weakness and joint pain were the allergy medication so i stopped taking it. Within a few days my joint pain went away i had more energy, ( still felt like sh*t from celiac) but i was able to laugh. whenever im on allergy medication i go to laugh and it feels like my mood is being supressed by something its soo annoying. But my allergies are so bad that i dont know what to do.

As a writer stated above, this is an old topic, but I feel it's very important to comment on.  I started Allegra three days ago and just yesterday I noticed that I was starting to feel depressed.  I know what the beginnings of depression feel like as I went through a severe depression over ten years ago.  Then, I had to be put on an anti-depressant for about a year and was able to get off of them.  So, it was a scary to have those creeping feelings again.  As the Allegra was the only thing I had started, I put it together and did a search online and found this site.  I was taking the 12 hour caplet and did not take the second one in the evening and this morning, I feel like my old self. 

The bad thing is that my youngest daughter takes Zyrtec and has been taking this since she was in middle school, she is now 26.  She has struggled with feeling depressed since middle school.  I'm talking about at least ten years on this!  We are going to be slowly withdrawing her off of the Zyrtec now.

It's obvious the FDA isn't what it used to be and they will continue to put out drugs with serious side effects.  If I hadn't tried Allegra, we would never have known that these types of antihistamines could cause depression and are most likely why my daughter is having trouble.  I wonder how many people who have been diagnosed with depression and are taking these drugs and have not connected the relationship between the two?

I will be telling everyone I know to stay away from Allegra and Zyrtec. 

Wow! Over the last few days I have taken Fexofenadine OTC. Last night and this morning I was completely off my rocker. This afternoon I have felt much better (almost normal) and thought I would do a search and found these posts. I will never take it again! Very scary experience for me.

well, once again, suffering from anxiety or depression only to find out it's been triggered by some other simple med - my psychiatrist, really smart and listens, told me a while ago that antihistamines are related to some psych. drugs, so when I had depression and anxiety starting "out of nowhere", again, after taking Allegra this past week, I started researching this morning online.  Here you all are! So I will find a way to suffer through allergies without taking ANY of these antihistamines that have been causing my brain to go nuts the last week. Thank you, Dr. I went to: "Oh, just take Allegra".... yes, thanks.  And the week before I took one pill of natural cortisol and it triggered a manic attack that lasted all day.  Thank you, everyone, for posting, and I hope the boy at the beginning of these posts had stopped any antihistamines.  Be careful and research deeper, what you feel is often NOT from out of the blue, it's caused by something!!

My daughter was only 18 and suffering from hives. She prescribed Allegra for them and had been taking them for about 2 months. The hives would come and go and she started having joint pain as well. I am pretty sure she had started taken an extra does at times on top of the two she was to take daily.

On 9/17/12, I found her hanging in her closet. She died by suicide. We had no idea that she was under this kind of depression. She did break up with her boyfriend of 3 years back in May, but had started college and was meeting new people. That Saturday before we went to a twins game and on Sunday we hung out as a family and cuddled with the dogs in bed. The next morning she got up went to school and when I came home after week, she was gone.

I'm not sure how much of a role Allegra played, if any. But I would never have any of my family members take this medicine again. My family is devastated and forever changed.