Hey pharmacy peeps - what do y'all think of Astelin? Does it get RX'd a lot? I'm an RN in a clinic with lots of allergy prone patients and have never even heard of it, but paid a visit to an ENT yesterday and got that and Nasacort, neither of which will be covered by my new insurance after 9/1 (but were covered this time around). I keep seeing some scary sides about astelin like headaches and horrible nightmares - and both those meds will be $$ if I have to pay for them myself. I guess I'll see if they work before demanding cheaper flonase (ENT doesn't like flonase since it comes with an alcohol carrier).(Not sure anything will work, since I have no obvious allergy symptoms).
It's very rarely prescribed, and even more rarely refilled, at least in my neck of the woods, as there isn't a lot of drug rep coverage for it and it isn't covered by many insurances anyway. One of its lovely attributes is what I've heard is a horrid, bitter taste that is sufficiently nasty enough to cause people to D/C it on their own. It's an antihistamine, so oddball CNS effects like weird dreams are a definite possibility. For antihistamines I'm a fexofenadine woman myself - it made my day when it went OTC and became cheap!
RxList is a groovy all-purpose site for both patient-level and professional-level information. http://www.rxlist.com/astelin-drug.htm