By Ed Cara
Two common anti-allergy medications can leave you feeling scratchier than ever. The Food and Drug Administration is warning that stopping long-term use of cetirizine and levocetirizine can, in rare cases, cause intense itchiness.
The FDA issued its warning earlier this month. Over the past decade, the agency has received hundreds of reports of people experiencing severe—sometimes “debilitating”—itching after going off the medications. Though it appears to be a rare complication, the FDA is also requiring manufacturers to mention the side effect in the labeling of these drugs.
“The underlying mechanism for this risk is unknown, but our evaluation supports a causal relationship between stopping cetirizine or levocetirizine and pruritus,” the FDA stated in its Drug Safety Communication about the products.
Cetirizine and levocetirizine are both antihistamine drugs that have been around for a while. The former was first approved as the prescription drug Zyrtec in 1995, while levocetirizine was approved as Xyzal in 2007. Though the drugs can still be prescribed, they’re also now widely available over-the-counter to treat hay fever and other allergy symptoms.
As useful and safe as these drugs have been for millions of people, whispers of this side effect have been circulating for years. A 2019 study identified potential cases of severe pruritus (itching) related to cetirizine withdrawal dating back to at least 2008, for instance, while a 2016 study reported similar cases in the Netherlands tied to levocetirizine; users have also detailed their unbearable experiences trying to quit these drugs on Reddit and other social media platforms long before the FDA stepped in. While it’s possible some people may have had a return of allergy symptoms once they stopped taking these drugs, people commonly reported itching that hadn’t existed before or to a degree previously never experienced.
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