Zyrtec PSA

[billroper]

For those of you who have noticed that Zyrtec is now an over-the-counter drug in the US and that your prescription plan is no longer paying for it, Walgreens (at least in Chicago) is selling the 60 count bottle of Wal-Zyr, their house-brand version of the drug, for $23.99.

And through March 29th, it's buy one, get one free.

I now have a four-month supply of the stuff for daisy_knotwise and me. :)

Comments

[persis.livejournal.com]

Thank you! for letting me know; it's on sale here too. :-) I've got the last 2 bottles in the store and a raincheck for another 2...

[kestrels-nest.livejournal.com]

Oooh, thank you! For me it went straight from "not on our formulary, we won't cover" to "OTC, we won't cover". Bleah.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

One of the pharmacists I used to work with, when asked which of the 3 antihistamines worked best (Allegra, Claritin or Zyrtec), would reply "The one your insurance won't pay for." Zyrtec does seem to work best for a lot of people.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

I went from "it's covered but only because my allergist wrote a special letter to document that the others don't work for me (but that means it's covered only if my $1500 deductible has been met, and only with a dreadful copay even then)" to OTC. I'm wondering if the Zyrtek D is the same price or higher; if it's not much higher, it sounds like it's about as bad as the after-the-deductible-is-met horrible copay. I'll have to go check out this sale.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

The Zyrtec D will be behind the pharmacy counter because it contains pseudoephedrine. I haven't seen the generic zyrtec D yet.

[billroper]

The question would be whether the makers of Zyrtec managed to patent the combination with pseudoephedrine, wouldn't it? If so, you won't see generic Zyrtec-D for a very long time.

On the other hand, you could just buy cheap pseudoephedrine pills -- also from behind the pharmacy counter. :(

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

The question would be whether the makers of Zyrtec managed to patent the combination with pseudoephedrine, wouldn't it?

Yes, they did but according to the listing I just found of patent expiration dates, it expired at the end of '07 just like the regular zyrtec. So now it becomes a case of when a generic manufacturer gets their version of it approved by the FDA, and their website says Teva has gotten an OTC version approved as of Feb 25, 2008. So if not available now, it should be real soon. Sometimes it takes a while to get production ramped up.

[grey-lady.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I'm traveling to the USA next month, and Claritin (which I can get OTC here) doesn't seem to be working for me any more, so perhaps I should give Zyrtec a try.