Preface: I am NOT a doctor or associated with healthcare fields.

Info here: https://www.drugs.com/monograph/loratadine.html

Possible side effect, drowsiness. But: all meds can have side effects that differ from person to person, sometimes in surprising ways.

Example: I was prescribed catapres to lower my blood pressure. It did so magnificently. But it’s also used to calm down hyperactive kids. It did just the opposite for me—sent me into a manic spiral for several days after 2 doses. I was wired for sound.

So you may just have an odd reaction. Or, you may be on other meds that interact with it. Here’s the list of known interactions: https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/loratadine-index.html

You’re not alone but it’s definitely not a common side effect from what I’ve been told. Allergy medication gives me terrible anxiety that sometimes escalates into panic attacks. For me I can take it during the day and feel jittery/weird but manageable, then it feels like it wears off but later while I’m sleeping it escalates and I wake up in the middle of a full blown panic attack. Not fun at all.

I have talked to my doctor about it and their opinion was that it’s not a documented side effect but everybody is different and so I should just avoid taking them. That answer sucks for me because I’m allergic to basically everything outside.

Completely anecdotal, but I had similar reactions when taking both Zyrtec and singulair for asthma/allergies, and switching out the ceririzine for loratidine or diphenhydramine(benedryl) got rid of the symptoms. Back when I started on singulair, I had no idea that certain allergy medicines could have an effect on mental health, but nowadays there’s a disclaimer packet every time I pick up a prescription of singulair. I had to do some experimenting with different combinations of allergy medications to find what worked best for me without side effects, so I’d recommend having a conversation with your doctor about what would be best for you to try

I’m sorry to hear you aren’t feeling great, I have been taking it for years and never had an issue.

Thanks for all your replies everyone! I’m going to stay away from loratadine and go back to my old one.

That’s not normally a side effect of that drug class, but anything is possible. Have you gone to urgent care or something for the panic attacks? I would definitely recommend seeing someone. Have there been any lifestyle changes recently?

This is not medical advise, so please ask your doctor, but I have had better luck with cetirizine as an anti-allergy med. It’s worth checking out.

I’ve seen people mention it. In general, drugs that are meant to have a certain effect, especially in the mental health realm, often have the exact opposite effect. At least temporarily in the first few doses.

Anyway, I don’t know anything more, but I’ll pitch the !health@lemmy.world community. There’s a stickied list of other communities you may find helpful.

I have never personally had that same experience, but I’ll note that drugs.com does note that a common loratadine side effect is “feeling nervous or hyperactive”, and with such a generic and common side effect as that it would make total sense that some people could be much more susceptible to it than others.

Thankfully there are alternatives, but each one has its own separate caveat.

This is gonna sound silly, but I have some serious outdoor allergies, and all these leftover cloth masks from covid, and it turns out wearing the masks outside help tremendously to reduce allergies because the pollen doesn’t make it all up my nose. Of course, the tradeoff is me being the person wearing a mask outdoors in the middle of summer 😅