(no subject)

[sisabet]

Today - today is slightly sucky. I'm trying to think of ways to make it suck less and things to concentrate on, and it is a stretch, even for me.

As far as oral decongestants go - I'm stuck with pseudoephedrine, right? I mean - that is pretty much all we got, right?

Why haven't they invented more decongestants? Antihistamines we have by the truckload, you'd think there would be some new designer decongestant out there that my insurance wouldn't cover and would cost way too much for me to buy it, but at least I would know it existed.

And can I get any more lame? I bet I can.

Things are looking fairly serious for my friend who had the melanoma removed yesterday - she's in significant pain today from the surgery (huge massive incision) and there is concern about her lymph nodes now (apparently the lesion was much more aggressive and deep than they originally thought) so - dudes - just remember to keep doing skin checks and wearing sunscreen and not tan and I promise I will feel better about all of y'all.

I swear I have Deep Thoughts about Smallville (and look - Cappy made me a Saved!Smallville icon) and Clark and... stuff. Hang on and I'll dislodge it.

Meh - I tried but now I don't feel like really discussing anything so nevermind. I'll be entertaining later.

Comments

[laurashapiro.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about your friend.

Sadly, yes, we are stuck with pseudoephedrine. I hate its side-effects so much I almost never take it. At extreme moments of distress I will use an inhaled decongestant like Afrin, but you have to be careful with those.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

Phenylephrine, pseudoephedrine, oxymetazoline, and previously phenylpropanolamine (now considered too high a stroke risk to use) seem to make up the available stable of decongestants. You have a lot more options with anti-histamines, but they're not the same.

[kadymae.livejournal.com]

You can try Dimetapp, which uses phenylpropanolamine as opposed to pseudoephedrin, but phenylpropanolamine is also a stimulant so it might screw with your sleep cycle, too. (But I think it clears the body faster. You'll want the 4 hour tabs. Enough to get you to sleep.)

The reason it's hard to find new decongestants that are safe is that decongestants work through constricting your blood vessels (which is why they raise blood pressure) and pretty much every chemical we know of that's a vasoconstrictor is also a stimulant. (For example, cocaine is a great vasoconstrictor and a cocaine solution is often used in surgeries to stop small bleeds.)

It's all chemestry.

[jackiekjono.livejournal.com]

I think there is a new incentive these days to develop new decongestants. There has been some talk of banning the liquid form of Sudefed (or making it significantly more difficult to get) because it can be used to make methamphetamine.

I am wearing my sunscreen every day. I even shelled out for the fancy stuff with zinc. And I promise to ask about skin checks when I go to my other cancer-avoidance-related doctor's appointment next week.

[jebbypal]

Actually, you can also look at pseudophedrine/guafenisen mixes. Pseudophed is the decongestant of choice since it has less propensity to probs w/ stroke though it still does bad things to blood pressure. Guafensisen is an expectorant -- it helps to make the mucus and stuff so you can cough and get rid of it easier while the decongestant just makes it run. By combining them, you generally don't have to use quite as high a dose of pseudophed a lot of times.

You can also now buy (i forget what it's called---i think it mucinex or something like that) guafenisen by itself OTC...it's being marketed primarily to the high bp crowd as a way to treat colds and allergy related congestion. I haven't tried it, but heard people say they like it.

You body adjusts to the pseudophed eventually and the side effects go away after a while. I've always had bad allergies (including those I didn't know about) and had to take pseudofed/guaifensin mixes pretty much since I was 3 if I didn't want to have massive sinus infections ALL the time. Never really noticed too many side effects till this last time I stepped up the dosage due to having problems w/ work related environmental allergies and stuff. If you have to take for a week or more, the side effects should dissipate some.

And interestingly, decongestants are just hard to make due to the molecular mechanisms that they work by. The chemicals we have seem to be the ones that do it, and well...discovering new molecules isn't all that easy, let alone making them safe enough to consume.

Okay..those were the science facts of the day. Back to my experiments.

[cheesygirl.livejournal.com]

I can't take pseudoephedrine after about 4 or 5 PM or I toss and turn all night. Luckily my sinuses usually act up in the morning when I first wake up and sometimes in the afternoon.

Drixoral

[revdorothyl.livejournal.com]

Whether it's a cold, flu, or allergies, NOTHING de-congests my head as well as Drixoral, and with as few side effects (the only noticeable side effect for me is that it dries me out so well that I tend to wake up in the morning with a dry mouth and a full bladder, if I take one at bedtime).

I know some people swear by pseudophedrine, and if that works for you, more power to you, but it doesn't do squat for me.

These days you have to look hard to find Drixoral in the drugstore cold medicine section, but it's worth it to me to be able to take 1 pill and be relatively unstuffed-up for the next 12 to 24 hours.

For whatever it's worth.