I Only Wish I'd Found It Sooner ! (Zirtek)

Member Name: aljones

Product:	Zirtek
Date:	05/07/01 (111 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great allergy relief, Easy to swallow

Disadvantages: None

Zirtek is yet anohter allergy relief tablet. I've suffered from quite bad year-round allergies for several years now, and as a result have been taking various different forms of allergy relief over those years. Zirtek is the most recent that I have tried.

Previously I have used Piriton and the Clarityn (though I do get mine on prescription, so it works out cheaper). I was getting nowhere fast with both of them. I had days, in all seasons, where I was quite literally confined to my house as my nose would not stop running. And I don't mean running in the normal sense. When most people say that they have a runny nose, they obviously have never had to put up with the sort of runny noses I have had. When I get a runny nose, I have to sit with my head hovering over a towel catching the drips, because my nose runs like a dripiing tap, continuously, possibly for several hours.

Fortunately this only ever happend once every couple on months, but nevertheless did happen. Then, I went to my GP to see if he could try me on something stronger than my previous tablets, or anything else just in the hope that a different allergy relief might have better effects. He said OK, and wrote me out a prescription for a 90 day supply of Zirtek. Great I thought, so off I toddled to my local chemist, payed my £6 and off I went in the hope that it would be the breakthrough I was looking for.

And thankfully, it was! Since I started taking Zirtek (almost a year to the day), i have had very few allergy-realted problems. On occasions I do still get a tingling in my nose, and do have the occasional bad spell, but never half as bad as before.

Zirtek tablets are very small, capsule shapped pills. I have trouble swallowing tablets, so their small size is a god send. Now for the technical bit. The Zirtek tablets I'm taking contain 10 milligrams of the drug Cetirizine Dihydrochloride. I don't really know if that has any significance to anyone, but I
9;ll include it to make this opinion more complete.

As far as side effects are concerned, I have noticed any. The warning on the packets says that reactions while driving might be impared, but I have never had any problems. They seem to be quite effective for mmost of the day, and throughout the evening. On occasions I think they do start to wear off late evening, but by then your getting ready for bed anyway.

I've never had full-blown problems will allergies, such as sore eyes, so I can't comment as to their effectiveness in releation to that. I did get very heavy-feeling heads sometimes, and Zirtek seems to have cured that. I take them in conjunction with Flixonase Nasal Spray, though I don't think this has much effect, as I've been taking Flixonase all the time no matter what tablets I was taking. I will say though that Flixonase provides more instant relief, whereas Zirtek seems to been a bit more delayed, and needs to be taken regularly to have a strong effect. I take one tablet every morning, and this works just fine. I do give myself a break from them now and again, to try and avoid building up an immunity to them, a tactic that is strongly advised for anyone who takes tablets evert day, as otherwise you end up having to take more and more to get the same effects.

So, there you have it. If you have bad allergies and haven't tried them, try Zirtek tablets. Get a prescritpion from your GP for them, rather than buy them over the counter, as it works out a lot cheaper especially if you can get prescriptions free (which I can again, thanks to NHS Wales increasing the age limit to 25).

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* UPDATE - 25th September 2001 *
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OK so the summer has passed, and Zirtek worked! I can't remember the last time i had a summer as allergy free as this one. I am still assuming that the Zirtek tablets I'm taking is the reason
for the lack of allergies, as I am still using Flixonase spray, though I was using Flixonase quite a few summers ago and never had these results.

Possibly a combination of the two? Anyway, I'm sticking to the one tablet a day stated dosage and it works fine. Somedays by about 9pm I'm starting to get a bit of itchiness in the nose, but apart from that its great.

If you have any sort of allergies (pollen, household dust, anything) I strongly urge to get your GP to prescribe some.

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