Benadryl just as good as Atarax?

[Charisse]

I know I've posted this question before but I never got any response so I'm trying again. Does anyone know if Benadryl is just as effective as Atarax? My dr said they are the same but if that's the case, then why does nobody take Benadryl? The Atarax makes me extremely groggy the next day and HUNGRY! I think I'd gain 10 lbs in a week if I took it everyday! I am just wondering if anyone out there has had good success with Benadryl instead or what the differences are?

[Claredale]

It was alot like it at first, but the effectiveness wore off pretty fast. I was having to increase the Benedryl over time. I was up to 5 pills just to help with my sleep and then I felt so strange the next day. My mom (a retired nurse) told me that taking too much Benedryl can cause memory loss as well. Now Benedryl in no way causes drowsiness with me. But as you know, everyone is different when it comes to what meds work and what doesn't. Sometimes a certain med will work great for me for a while, then the next thing I know, I have to find another med to take it's place. If you are taking it to help calm your bladder and help you sleep and it works...give it a try.

T83

[charmedx3]

I have been wondering the same thing.

[Charisse]

I've been taking Benadryl for years so I wonder if it's just not as effective like you say. It does make me tired and helps with my nasal allergies. I'm just not sure it's doing anything for my bladder.

[LeeAnn]

I used to take Benadryl for general allergies before being officially diagnosed w/ IC and it never improved my symptoms like Atarax did.

It's certainly not chemically the same.

I'm not sure why he/she would care. If you want to take Atarax, it is a cheap drug if you get the generic.

It takes some time but after a while you get less and less groggy with the Atarax. I even take 50mg in the morning now and 100mg at night. The 50mg doesn't phase me in the mornings----and I don't even drink coffee!!! I miss it terribly, but my bladder doesn't.

[Charisse]

Lee Ann this is very helpful -thank you. I didn't realize they were so different chemically. My dr said they are the same. He was happy to prescribe me Atarax but since it was making me so tired he said just take the Benadryl. I tried cutting the 25 mg in half and then in quarters even and I still feel hungover from it and the newest symptom is it makes me HUNGRY. Which is a crack up but I really don't need to gain any weight right now. I just reached my goal at Weight Watchers after 6 mos on the program. Anyway . . .I am going to talk to my dr about trying it again and hoping that the hangover eventually goes away.

[LeeAnn]

You're welcome. They are the "same" in that they are both antihistamines and maybe that's what your doctor meant. But other than that, they are not the same.

Benadryl's chemical name is diphenhydramine hydrochloride. Atarax is hydroxyzine hydrochloride. Vistaril is actually more similar to Atarax and it's chemical name is hydroxyzine pamoate.

Plus, my doctor told me that Atarax & Vistaril are safer for long-term use.

Both my doctor and pharmacist recommended that if I run out of Atarax, that I buy an over the counter drug called Bonine. It's chemical name is meclizine hydrochloride. It's also an antihistamine but is typically used for motion sickness and that's where you'll find it at the drugstore---by the Dramamine. I have actually used it many many times over the last several years when I've been in a bind, secondary to insurance battles, or forgetting my pills on vacation (duh!) etc. For me, it works wayyyy better than Benadryl but it's pricey to use as a standard therapy because I take 2-3 of the Bonine pills at a time (per my doctor's recommendation, check w/ yours first). But it's great for when I'm in a pinch.

[Charisse]

Lee Ann I have some Bonine at home and I use it pretty frequently for motion sickness. I had no idea it would work on the bladder too. I can't thank you enough for all this information!! After talking to you I think I'm going to give Atarax another shot. Maybe if I take it earlier in the evening it would be better? I feel strongly that I have an allergy component to the IC since my flares have always been in the spring and this year was the worst just 4 days after I stopped my allergy meds.

[LeeAnn]

Hi again Charisse,

Oh, you are sooo welcome. That's what we're all here for. And yes! If you routinely flare during allergy season I strongly suspect that Atarax or Vistaril would help you. I am the same way! My bladder flares the worst in the spring time and it also flares in the fall but not quite as bad.

And I take my Atarax with dinner around 7pm so I won't wake up with that hangover feeling. I usually wake up for work at 5-5:30am so that gives me a good ten hours. I definitely try not to wait until right before bed or waking up is sooooo hard and sooooo painful. One thing I've noticed is that Atarax definitely gives me vivid dreams--which I've heard is common. Also, b/c it does make me sleepy at 100mg, when I get up in the middle of the night to potty, I can fall right back asleep without any problems. Otherwise, I'm one of those people who has a hard time falling back asleep.

Oh, and another thing is that I used to be a very allergic person, despite being on allergy shots for 5 years as a kid. The Atarax I take (at the dose I take) almost completely has taken care of my allergy issues. I occassionally have to take generic Claritin in addition to the Atarax, but usually only for a few days at a time and usually it is not for sneezing or runny nose but for crusty & puffy eyes. I have no idea what pollen irritates my eyes.......but when that happens I take Claritin. Other than that, Atarax keeps the rest of my allergies under control.

Another reason I'm glad Atarax has worked so well for me (and lots of other people) is that it's one of the few drugs my OB said I could stay on when I decide to get pregnant. She said it's totally safe. She told me that it's one of the safest drugs and that when pregnant women get rashes caused by allergies, Atarax is the first drug they use to get it under control.

I will say though, that at 150mg a day (total that I take) it can dry out my nose so a few times a week I use a q-tip and put Aquaphor in my nose which is similar to vaseline. But I don't even need that every day.

Anyway, good luck with it! I hope if you decide to try it again, it will work just as well for you.

[Charisse]

LeeAnn I have trouble sleeping due to fibromyalgia and although Atarax makes me super tired, I don't get into a deep enough stage of sleep with antihistamines alone so I take Ambien too. I wonder if somehow the mixture is just too much? I will have to try the Atarax by itself and see how I do but I have a feeling I still won't sleep well. I have too many medical conditions and all the medications conflict with one another! I just hope the drowsy side effect would eventually lessen for me. And the hungry one too although I guess that's better than pain. And it sounds like Atarax is all around a lot safer than Benadryl so it's funny that it's prescription when you can buy Benadryl OTC. I have learned so much from you -thank you so much!! :hi: Oh and yeah my seasonal allergies are bad too and I take two Claritin a day and Singulair as well.

[Berkshire Road]

I posted about benadryl somewhere, on a different thread. I think what your doctor meant about them being the same is, they are in the same class of drug. They are not chemically identical, but they have essentially the same effects bc. they work in the same way. Newer antihistamines like claritin are completely different. When I was diagnosed, I was already taking benadryl to sleep, and my doctor said it was a good instinct.

Maybe you need your atarax dose changed?

Good luck with it, anyway.

[Thereisnopain]

Be very careful about benadryl... My mom began taking benadryl after her bladder was removed because it helped with many of the other problems she began having, but it was a very quick downhill for her. She quickly had to move from oral to doses through her central line, because the oral wouldn't do a bit of good... By the time we convinced her to stop taking the benadryl, I was personaly giving her 200 and 300 MG injections (this is not an exageration) every 2-3 hours. Her doctor was very careless and would refill it despite running out after only a week or two. To make matters worse her memory got to the point that 30 minutes or an hour later she couldnt remember if she'd had a dose at all, and so she would insist on having more. Memory loss also wasn't the only thing. Once she started with the really heavy doses, her entire personality changed. She'd go from incredibly happy and almost euphoric while on the benadryl, to screaming at people when it was gone.

Now she is taking atarax, but still to this day struggles with a sort of "benadryl addiction". I never knew such a thing was possible, but her body really did become addicted to the benadryl. If she's having difficulties with one of her many health problems, a couple hundred MG of benadryl will do the trick right away, but then she immediately starts into the same addictive pattern she was in previously.

[Charisse]

I've never heard of a Benadryl addiction? I've been taking 25 mg off and on for several years at night and never had a problem with wanting more. It doesn't feel like an addicting drug at all to me but I know everyone is different. I've been using the Atarax since last week and it feels so much stronger and like it stays in my system forever. I really hate that. I'm breaking the 25 mg in quarters. It does seem to be helping my bladder more though so I'm going to stick with it awhile longer.

[Thereisnopain]

I'm not sure that benadryl technically is addictive, but in the sense that it takes more and more and more of it to achieve the same effect is where my mom got into trouble.

I know what you mean about the atarax. I've been taking it for a few weeks now and I keep getting hit with random drowsy spells, I've been sleeping 10 hours a night when prior I only slept 5 or 6, etc.

It has worked wonders for my IC however, so I'm certain I'll stick with it one way or another.

I hope atarax works out for you too!

[Charisse]

What dose do you take? I do think it's helping me as well. Is it common to have it work that quick? I've felt much less inflammed the past 2 days. Maybe it's total coincidence but I'm going to keep up with the Atarax. Oh and like LeeAnn said -I'm having very vivid dreams!!

[Thereisnopain]

It kicked in immediately for me. The day after I already noticed a slight difference, by day 3 I was doing incredible.

I began taking it in the middle of a very severe flare up and it completely shut it down.

From what I've read, it's a very fast acting anti-histamine, while the mast cell reduction takes quite a bit longer, up to a month, to take effect.

Im no doctor, but from what I understand about mast cells after talking to many doctors about them, my suspicion is that the mast cell reducing aspect of atarax is why it keeps working, and doesn't need the dosage upped to achieve the same affect as when it was started.. While benadryl simply controls the histamines, and so somewhere in there the mast cells are responding by encouraging histamine production even more, while in the case of atarax, the mast cells are kept in check as well.

Like I said, not a doctor, but just my amateur suspicion.

Oh, and I'm taking 25MG at night. My doctor prescribed me 75 a day but I knew ahead of time that atarax would hit me hard, as I never do well with drowsy medications. Just 25MG has given me a fair share of zombie days.

I'm not much one for pumping chemicals into my body unless it's absolutely needed, so I probably won't up the dose for a good long while, if ever.

[Charisse]

This makes sense to me. I've tried googling Benadryl versus Atarax on the web and just can't come up with much. I thought Bendryl inhibited mast cells as well but I will try researching it some more and let you know what I find. I'm one of those annoying people who needs scientific reasoning behind everything and I'd like to report back to my dr about my findings as well since he said Benadryl is just as good. If I can help even one other patient out there by looking this stuff up then I'll feel I've accomplished something!

[Thereisnopain]

more power to ya. I'm the same way and it's the only reason I'm not on 50 different medications by now.. If we followed every bit of advice that these idiot (not all doctors are idiots, let me specify that before I get chewed out by someone lol) doctors gave us we'd never see the end of this.

[swarr]

My mom's dr told her not to take benedryl because of her high blood pressure. I have also hear something about the blood brain barrier??? I do also know that benedryl causes my blood pressure to go up.

[Charisse]

Well just to let you know I never could find much on the web comparing these two meds. Wikipedia lists a good description of Atarax but nothing saying how it might work better or differently than Benadryl. They are both H1 antihistamines. There is a lot of antecdotal info on how it's much stronger than Benadryl. The Atarax does seem to be helping me more even on a lower dose so I'm sticking with it.

[Wolfe]

Just to add to the mix, I have Fibro too, and my rheumatologist wouldn't give me anything for sleep. When I first saw her I was taking Benadryl and melatonin every night, and she said Benadryl was good enough.

But my GP was concerned about my sleep deprivation and gave me Ambien. I've been taking both Ambien and Benadryl (for allergies and bladder) for about 8 months now. It doesn't seem to have affected my blood pressure.

But if you people say Atarax is better, I'm going to ask about it! Something that actually affects the mast cells makes sense to me. Protecting that layer and avoiding inflammation seems like the thing to do -- whatever it takes. Thanks for the info.

[Claredale]

I started out on Benadryl when my first IC symptoms started for a couple of reasons. To help me sleep and it was suggested here that it would help with the mast cells. At first it was working like a charm (like most meds do) but I had to keep increasing my dosage. My mom (a retired nurse) told me that Benadryl had been known to cause memory loss, so I went on to Atarax after that for a while.