Food Allergies Support Group

I don't know how rare it has to be before they count it as rare at a drug company -- a psychiatrist I worked for once scoffed at the idea that a discontinued drug was really dangerous because only about 40,000 people died and that's a RARE reaction, but he's sort of a space cookie -- but it does make sense. My allergy symptoms come along with a really foul mood that turns around completely when I get some benadryl on board. And some people get hyper as crap on that stuff but it mskes me fall asleep after becoming incapable of caring about ANYTHING that might normally annoy me.

I am one of the rare people that actually developed a fixed drug eruption to antihistamines, which is a rash that occurs in the same spot every time I take an antihistamine that was also accompanied by a fever. Anyway I had taken antihistamines many years before I ever even got the rash. The last few times before I got the rash itself I was only having fatigue and anxiety as side effects. Be careful and look out for warning signs because you can be having an allergic reaction which could progress to something more severe over time. The good news is there are tons of different kinds of antihistamines (many are made of like different molecular structures) so you can experiment with them to find out which ones work out best for you. An allergy to antihistamine is pretty rare but don’t disregard it if you feel like you are having a problem with them. Other then a reaction it could just be a bad side effect and you could just be sensitive to them.

Thank you for these responses. I've done a little more research and found that SSRIs, which I can't tolerate, are structurally based on and similar to antihistamines. So it makes sense.

So I know people who don't want to jump off bridges when they take SSRIs, but I'm definitely the kind who wants to check out when I'm on the stupid things.

Which then makes me wonder if other classes of anti-depressant drugs would work to treat some allergies. Hrm.