Originally published at: FDA says the decongestant in OTC Benadryl, Nyquil, Sudafed, and Mucinex don't actually work | Boing Boing
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Never used the phenylephrine variety, and will make sure to avoid.
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I get 600 little pink tablets of Benadryl from Costco for 8 bucks.
I just checked, diphenhydramine is the main ingredient, phenylephrine is not even listed.
I guess some products have both.
As long as they don’t take away my cheap little pink pills all is good. Those little pink pills are also cheap sleeping pills and also allow me to keep our crazy cats.
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I use Benadryl regularly as well. It’s an antihistamine not a decongestant, and definitely doesn’t contain phenylephrine. Use it at night since it makes me drowsy. Use generic Allegra during the day.
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I noticed this years ago and thought it was just me.
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Not just you. It is also not news. It’s been known for a long time that it was just a placebo.
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In my case, it’s effective at causing heart palpitations* (while the real/good stuff does not).
*Same with black (not the usual green) cardamom.
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I’m glad to see the FDA doing something about phenlyephrine at last. I read about its placebo-level effectiveness years ago. Though I can’t remember where I read it, I remember the article also lamenting that when pseudoephedrine moved behind the counter, brands like Sudafed came out with their OTC versions and made them look the same. But the dose is different - an adult does of Sudafed is 2 pills, but the same adult dose of Sudafed PE is 1 pill.
Nothing work for me but good old psuedoephedrine. As for fighting the meth-makers for it, maybe you can let them have it first 
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Phenylephrine always just makes me feel even more ill.
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Meth is thin on the ground most places in the UK (speed is more likely to be amphetamine sulphate here, not methamphetamine). We’d be better off if there was a work-back from mdma, cos it’s easier to find 
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What’s news is that the FDA has just stated it. So this might be the beginning of the end of these companies being allowed to make false claims.
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You can thank our idiotic War on Drugs for this nonsense.
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Hmm, I’ve got a bunch of old decogestants, and now I’m trying to figure out if they’re from before the ban on OTC pseudoephedrine, and if they are, if that means they’re now unsafe to use because they’re long-expired. I… should probably just throw them out, either way.
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Am I the only person Benadryl doesn’t make drowsy? I don’t even notice it.
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To me this seems more embarrassing for the FDA than for these companies. Why did the FDA approve an OTC drug that didn’t work? If it doesn’t actually work then clearly they didn’t test and study the compound to the extent that they should have rather than just take the data at face value. If anything it makes me doubt their capability more than the little i already had on them.
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Depends on how old it is. If it falls under the “generally regarded as safe” level, that doesn’t imply effectiveness at all, it just slid through the legacy approval process.
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Yeah, that seems to be the case to my inexpert eyes. I found these while looking for the older article I mentioned above:
“The Uselessness of Phenylephrine” (won’t onebox):
https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/uselessness-phenylephrine
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At least in kids, (a frequent qualifier for me) it 90% experience sedation, about 10% have a paradoxical excitatory response. I describe it as a double shot espresso, and bounce off the walls. Obviously, like everything, there is a spectrum to this, and those are very rough numbers. I don’t have the figures for how many just get “meh” out of it.
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If I take one I’ll get drowsy pretty quick, if take two it may make me drowsy or it may make restless. If I take more than 2 I won’t be able to sleep.
But if I’m really having a runny nose and itchy eyes from the cats 2 or more will dry me up pretty quick.
It’s an odd drug.
Our vet said we could give it to crazy cat to calm him down at night but small amount or a full pill do nothing for him.
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