ANTI-HISTAMINE AND CALAMINE

"Very strong," She cautioned, placing heavy emphasise on the word 'very' before continuing, "So, do space it out, say, 6 hours apart. It's really very strong."

I blinked at the lady behind the pharmacy counter. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and I was at the polyclinic to get my unexplained, sudden bout of blotchy skin rash diagnosed. I blinked at the lady behind the counter. What? It's only an anti-histamine drug, isn't it? How strong can it get? It can't possibly be stronger than codeine in cough syrups, can it? I thought and gave the label a cursory glance. "Hydroxyzine." Hmmm... Now, that sounds familiar. Ahhh... Dr. H. Ko. He must have taught it during the Pharmacology course in second year of polytechnic.

I took the medication and thanked the pharmacist. The medication constitutes 7 days' worth of Hydoxyzine and a bottle of calamine lotion. Reached home at 5pm+. Ate a quick, early dinner. Went online. Popped a pill of Hydroxyzine. Went offline. Dubbed some calamine lotion onto the affected skin regions. Then. I slept like a baby.

This morning, I woke up still feeling very drowsy. Man, when she said 'strong', she REALLY meant it. This is worse than any cough syrup. It felt like a Dementor has jumped out of the Harry Potter series and is sucking off my life energy. I changed and dragged myself to school. Totally sapless; my eyes could barely open. I ended up missing the morning assembly (I'm pretty sure that's against the school rules!) to catch some eye-shut.

Aware of the mighty sedative prowess of the Hydroxyzine pills now, I laid off the medication for the whole of today. At 4pm, I finally popped my first dosage of the day. By 4.30pm, I was already off to dreamland, and woke up at 7pm (Yes, good morning! I just woke up an hour ago). I was TOTALLY and COMPLETELY knocked out; it seriously feels like I've slept for 12hours straight instead of a mere 2.5.



Anyway, the good news is: the pills are working wonders! Ever since the anti-histamine medication, the hives-like rashes are now almost gone; though on closer inspection, small random "pimples" can still be spotted cruising through the arms and legs. The good thing is, it doesn't look like it's serious enough to leave scars. So, things are looking fine! All that's left is for the small lil' pimply bumps to subside totally, and I'll be normal again! *WOOT!*



P.S. The doctor suspects the sudden, unexplained outbreak of rashes could either be due to stress, or an allergic reaction to an irritant(s)/allergen(s) in the environment. This is bad, because there is no way of fingering out the culprit(s); so there is no way of knowing what exactly on earth is it that I'm allergic to! AND this is the FIRST time breaking out in rashes like this. Arrgggh...