Do you buy brand name antihistamines?

[Workyticket]

Dh and ds (10) are both taking Piriton for hay-fever. Just wondering if non brand ones are as affective 🤔

There's a lot of evidence about the placebo effect of red tablets being more powerful than white ones.

Anadin Extra Tablets contains the active ingredients: Aspirin 300mg, Paracetamol 200mg, Caffeine 45mg.

One generic aspirin plus one generic paracetamol and a cup of coffee will give you the same and be a lot cheaper.

Never pay more for a brand in this country and never will. Developing countries is a little different and I may pay the extra

(My username tells you I know what I'm talking about!)

It was going ok until you mentioned the coffee @saraclara, I’d rather die of thirst than drink that vile stuff! I stock up on Anadin when they are on offer, which is most of the time luckily.

I buy 8 months of Loratidine for £4.80 of Amazon for the 2 family members who don’t have it on prescription. The pharmacy that supplies it sends the same brand that my local pharmacy supplies for me on prescription

I found Allevia here recently - £6.99 for 30, which sounds a lot but it’s cheaper than eg Boots and a few people I know say it’s the only thing that works for them.

ayp.healthcare/allergies-and-hayfever/allevia-120mg-30-tablets

Never say never. If I had any control over what gets dispensed, I would've happily paid a fiver per packet premium purely to avoid having to take Teva's generic lamotrigine. BLEURGH.

For myself I always buy the shops own brand antihistamines, usually Asda just as that's where I tend to shop.

I do buy Piriton for my Son though, the liquid one. He's 1 and that's what the GP and Pharmacist recommended to us so do keep buying that one for him

No this is not correct I'm afraid. The PL number (soon to be PLGB number for those of us in GB - thanks Brexit) is specific to the medicine and the manufacturer.

All cetirizine 10mg are essentially the same - and if they are manufactured by different companies they will have different PL numbers. In the vast majority of cases, branded and generic versions of the same medicine are completely equivalent.

In a very small number of cases, for example some epilepsy medicines, the differences in the formulation are important. Sometimes this is because of differences in bioavailability (how quickly/uniformly the medicine enters the bloodstream) or it can be differences in the other inactive ingredients (some may contain lactose, for example, which may not be OK for some patients).

Sorry I should have clarified - in some cases two supermarkets may have packs with different colours and brand names and the same PL number in which case they are completely identical. But two cetirizines with different PL numbers are still essentially the same thing.

Apologies. Wine has been consumed.

Second the Moneysaving Expert links to understand how there's no need to buy branded tablets in small packs.

It's also good to know that you can buy a tub of 500 piriton tablets for about £20. Just google piriton 500 - you know they're legitimate because they have their pharmacy registration number on the webpage, eg:

www.reachpharmacy.com/piriton-antihistamine-tablets-4mg-500-tablet-pack

Like @prescribingmum I have an involvement in this area so can tell you with confidence:
Evidence shows that no one antihistamine is more effective than any other overall, it is just finding one that works for you. Fexofenadine is NOT more effective than others, that is a myth perpetuated by the fact that it has not been available to buy until this year.
Generics contain exactly the same amount of active ingredient as branded so are equally effective
Good advice re PL number from @whereamu
@PinkSparklyPussyCat the caffeine is apparently to speed up the absorption of the drugs but there is no evidence it works so don't worry about the coffee!

...and whoever said "See your GP if your antihistamines don't work" please be aware there is nothing available on prescription that is not available to buy. Many areas, including the one I work in, have instructed prescribers to tell patients to go to the pharmacy instead

DH has terrible hay fever and cannot function in the Summer without medication- He gets generic Loratadine £5 for 90 tabs from Weldrick's chemist. I once remember him running out and got 7 tabs for £8.99 (!!!) from the Tesco Express - price of branded is a disgrace. Always check the ingredients labels on the brands and buy the generic. Agree with earlier poster about Anadin Extra- take generic Asprin/Paracetomol and a coffee.

I always buy own-brand Loratadine (citerizine makes me drowsy). I buy own-brand ibuprofen & paracetamol, too. It’s exactly the same dose of exactly the same stuff at a fraction of the price.

Whether it had the same effect as the branded product is partly down to the placebo effect of the brand & fancy packaging on the person taking it….

@QueenOfHiraeth that’s interesting about Fexofenadine. No antihistamines work that well for me. I’ve got a blue inhaler (the GP never actually saw me, just prescribed it) but I rarely use it as it doesn’t really go anything. The neighbours must think I smoke 40 a day with the amount of coughing I’ve done today! Thanks for the advice about the caffeine!

@QueenOfHiraeth @prescribingmum would you say the ones on amazon etc are OK for kids too? Ds is 10

about 15 years ago I could get 500 Piriton for £8 from a local supermarket pharmacy until the assistant was told off :) Shows you how cheap they are

Queen, I was quite careful to qualify each time that fexofenadine is better for me. There is evidence suggesting some antihistamines are on average better than others for certain things at certain points post-dose, they're not all identical, so of course there'll be individual variation in which one people find best.

And when it comes to generic drugs, I almost always buy generics and treat them as pretty much interchangeable but I wouldn't want to assume they'll always work exactly the same for everyone; excipients can really make a difference sometimes as Janet pointed out, and some people seem to be really sensitive to differences while others (like me) aren't really. Still have to stick with the same brand of lithium, though…

I do use brand name but only because I refer Benadryl which I can take several times a day rather than a 1-a day and all the supermarket unbranded ones I've found have been 1a day. Problem is that they seem to wear off part way through the day and I can't top up, whereas I can take Benadryl in the morning, mid afternoon and before bed and feel much better.

I take fexofenadine with the cetirizine but I'm on a massive dose (4 x 10mg cetirizine and 4 x 180mg fexofenadine

Is yours the Benadryl acrivastine though? I've never found the generic equivalent of that one. It used to work for me and cost me a fortune...but then it stopped working anyway 🤷🏼‍♀️

Don't ask for choramphenicol; it's a prescription-only antibiotic! As other posters have said, Piriton is chlorphenamine. (If you want cetirizine, ask for Piriteze)

Do different types of anti histamine work better on different symptoms or is it just a case of suck it and see? I get PMLE outbreaks and it's been suggested that a daily AH will help but I don't know which one to go for.