OTC drug (mis)information

graceupongrace

New Member
How frustrating is this?!

difficult child started on Zoloft not long ago. He caught a cold & was coughing a lot. psychiatrist said OTC remedies are OK, but gave us a couple of ingredients to avoid. I carefully avoided those & found some tablets with-dextromethorphan as the active ingredient. Checked the label -- it said to avoid interaction with MAOIs. OK, no problem. Checked with the pharmacist to be sure -- no problem. Checked the Zoloft patient information -- no problem.

He took a couple of the tablets, and seemed a little more irritable than he has been lately. So I went to the internet, and a couple of usually reliable websites said to avoid taking dextromethorphan with MAOIs and SSRIs. I went into a tailspin, and called the pharmacy. A very nice pharmacist spent 20 minutes on the phone with me while she checked her (presumably more reliable) pharmacology websites & books. She found no drug interaction warnings for SSRIs & detrometorphan. Her guess was that the consumer websites incorrectly included both categories of antidepressants in the warning. I felt better, but decided to go back to plain old Ricola cough drops anyway.

The moral of the story, I guess, is don't trust everything you read on the internet. Except this site, of course. ;)

Anyone else have issues combining OTC & Rx medications?
 
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Mandy

Parent In Training
I can't give Little Bear any OTC cold medications because he behaves horribly so I quit long ago! I finally switched to an all natural dye free cough & cold and he does fine with it. It is scary worrying about all the interactions!
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
I think it really just depends on the individual and their own unique response to medications, OTC or Rx'd. It was smart of you to listen to your instincts and then consult with the pharmacist for verification. I've had GP's tell me one thing about a medication and the pharmacist had the more accurate answer.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
I agree, it depends upon the individual.

But MAOIs are not the same as SSRIs so I think that was an error online.

It's always good to double check, so you did the right thing. I hope he feels better!

I found this on Wikipedia, which was very interesting (I also thought it was interesting where they had sources and where they were lacking sources--a work-in-progress). [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_use_of_dextromethorphan[/ame]
 
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