Posted 10/2/2015 11:19 AM (GMT -5)
Hi again! We think we have the allergy narrowed down to sulfites. Nothing else really seems to fit. So my allergist put me on 20 mg Zyrtec in the morning and 20 mg at night (with Crohn's, I struggle with absorption issues).
I am now 12 weeks pregnant. We found out I was, the allergist took me off Zyrtec and said to take 50 mg liquid benadryl every 4 hours as needed. That quickly became round-the-clock, since most of my Crohn's safe foods have sulfites in them. It is safer to have hives than to have a Crohn's flare, especially during pregnancy. That wasn't working well, so we had to switch to 75 mg of liquid benadryl every 6 hours.
Now that I am past 12 weeks, my OB gave me the okay to start Zyrtec again. He doesn't seem to care if I am doing 10 mg or 20 mg twice a day. My allergist, on the other hand, is ridiculous about it. He is freaking out over Zyrtec and said he'd rather put me on methylprednisolone throughout the pregnancy than Zyrtec, because "steroids are category B and Zyrtec is category C." I insisted he had it backwards, but he wouldn't listen to me. (The FDA, Drugs.com, and rxlist.com all state that Zyrtec is category B for pregnancy).
I now refuse to go that allergist and can't find a new one nearby. My OB also said Zyrtec was C because "almost nothing is B except Tylenol" but he didn't look it up and I didn't push the issue.
Anyway, my problem is that 10 mg twice a day is not enough to keep hives at bay, so I am still needing to take benadryl with it. Had anyone here been on Zyrtec while pregnant? What was your dosage? Could I safely go up to 20 mg twice a day? I am just really having a hard time getting my specialists to talk to each other and not pass the buck off to the other specialist.