Does Fexofenadine (Allegra) cause depression?

I cant ignore my sons behavior these days. He has become very quiet, calm and peaceful. He often looks at one spot and he dont laugh a lot. He is only 16 years old. He is too young for that kind of behavior. I think that he is depressed. It has started about at the same time when he started to use Fexofenadine (Allegra) for his allergy. Does Fexofenadine (Allegra) cause depression?

No, I dont think so. I am using it for a long time and my daughter is using it and we have no psychological difficulties at all. You should see is there something else in question? Maybe he is having some other problems. Also check if he is taking some sleeping pills, pain killers or muscle relaxants because they can make him sleepy.

My experience is that YES, Allegra absolutely causes depression. In late '02 I became very ill & was eventually diagnosed w/food & environmental allergies &prescribed allegra 180mg. Initially this was a god-send but soon after starting, in 2-3/03 I began to experience severe pain, fatigue, confusion and thoughts of suicide. I did not make the connection because the drs I saw for these symptoms all told me that won’t be the cause, I must have something else wrong or was just imagining my symptoms. The drs (I saw a total of 9 in 5 yrs) attributed my depression & other symptoms to not being able to handle the stress of daily life as I'd I been so sick & my job was so stressful & I needed more time to recuperate from being so sick. To cut down on "the stress" I dropped out of UCD, got divorced, stopped socializing, stopped working out and quit my job. After starting allegra in 2003, I went from being a very active & organized person who loved to go out, learn new things, meet new people, successfully employed making $75-150k a year, traveling all over the world, to an overweight(50lbs), unemployed, confused, unmotivated recluse who was weepy, tired & jumpy all the time. FedEx guy knocks on the door & I jump & run to my bedroom. I'm too scared to answer. Unreasonable, I know, but that is how it's become since I started this drug. All the doctors I saw kept reinforcing that my depression was just me and since I had ups and downs….meaning on the drug I was a confused, paranoid, hopeless, zombie, off the drug I was a functioning human being, they considered that maybe I was bi-polar. (I was only taking allegra about 9 months out of the year as my allergies were seasonal.) I saw a new doctor to get testing for everything to figure out what was wrong with me & stopped taking 3 weeks ago & it's been like driving out of fog. I went back and also tracked when I was feeling good and matched it up to when I was not taking allegra and when I was feeling bad and matched it up to when I was taking allegra. Since I stopped taking, the muscle & joint pain has decreased to almost being gone, constant hunger, swelling in face & hands, headaches & confusion is gone. I actually was able to read a sentence & remember what I'd read! A year ago I was telling people how wonderful allegra was & how much it helped me clear up my allergies. It did do that w/o a doubt, but at what cost to the rest of me? I'm so angry at the myriad of doctors I reached out to for help who blamed my "stressful lifestyle" & depression for my symptoms instead of their being a side effect of the drugs they prescribed &/or knew I was taking.

I went from cetirizine to fexofenadine because cetirizine was causing mild depression and mental lethargy... I just couldn't be bothered doing anything, and I did have thoughts of leaving my wife and child and just walking off into the sunset.

At the same time, I would say I couldn't feel any really bad emotion either... so I guess as well as suppressing my allergic responses it was supressing my emotions too.

It was only when I came off the drug at the end of the hayfever season that within 2-3 days I felt great. Like a blanket had been lifted. Everything was fun again!

This is a real nuisance, as both drugs mentioned are the best antihistamines you can get ( at time of writing and to my knowledge ). I always ask my Doctor each year if there are any new drugs, but it seems that research into this isn't so great any longer as the market is saturated with options, and it seems most people are fine on these drugs... or think they are(!)