Friday, May 1, 2009

Bzz Agent Review: Children's Claritin

I'm currently reviewing Children's Claritin for Bzz Agent. K- has pretty moderate seasonal allergies. This requires her to take a children's allergy medication from mid-March until mid-June. Prior to K- being 2, our pediatrician wanted K- to take nothing more than Dimetapp. It worked okay, but K-'s allergies were in need of a bit more high-potency. When K- reached the magical age of two, our pediatrician put her on Zyrtec. K- has been taking Zyrtec ever since.

Some time back, I received an e-mail from Bzz Agent about this review of Children's Claritin. My friend has always sung the praises of Children's Claritin with her children, so I figured, why not?

I should tell you that K- loves it. She said that it is tasty and easy to take. The Zyrtec is a liquid. The Children's Claritin that they sent along is in chewable tablet form.

Now, I admit that I looked at the price of this at Giant Eagle recently. It was $10.99 for a 10 pack. I admit that to me that seems a little steep, but I also admit that I don't know how many 1 teaspoon doses of Zyrtec are in the bottle that we use. The Zyrtec was $9.99. Walgreen's advertised Children's Claritin on sale this week. When I went to purchase it, there was a coupon for $2.00 off on the shelf and it was the bonus 25 pack. I paid $12.99 for 25 doses of Claritin. I call that a deal. (I had coupons, but I forgot about them!)

Now to the nitty gritty, I gave the Children's Claritin the ultimate test. I decided to wait to try it until the pollen was horribly high. You know what? It worked like a charm. Truly. You would have never known.

Now, I should back peddle and tell you what type of symptoms K- suffers from when she has allergies. Her allergy attacks produce a severely runny nose. Her runny nose drains to her stomach, giving her stomach aches that can result in vomiting or diarrhea. (Gross, but true.) Her eyes will swell and do nothing but water. She'll also have an allergy cough. If not properly tended to, all of this will go straight into a wonderful sinus infection. Often, that sinus infection will also decide to involve the ears and infect those, too. That means antibiotics, fevers, missed school/activities, sick kid, worried mommy and it is not worth it. I find that simply giving K- allergy medication during those few months in the springtime, as the pediatrician directs me to, it buys quality of kid life for my allergy suffering kiddo.

So what do I think of Children's Claritin? Good stuff! I admit that I like having the option to toggle back and forth, but since Claritin is what K- seems to like the best, we'll stick with that as long as I can find it on sale. We do have a bottle of Zyrtec that she will need to finish off, so as to not waste.

Some facts they would like you to know about Children's Claritin?
1. It has a great grape taste that K- thinks is completely awesome!
2. It is a pill vs. a liquid, so K- and other kids feel like they have a bit more control in their medicine taking. That and if it falls on the floor, it doesn't do so with a splash.
3. #1 Pediatrician Recommended non-drowsy brand. Though good to note that I do give it to K- before bed and it has never caused a problem.
4. Recommended for children 2 and up.
5. One dose lasts the whole day and doesn't make the kids jittery.
6. Two million school days are lost due to seasonal and indoor allergies. 4 out of 10 school children are affected by allergies. Yikes!

So, I have coupons! To the first 5 people who send their address to my e-mail, I will send a $3.00 off coupon for Children's Claritin. The coupon is off of a 4 oz syrup or a 10 count or larger box o' chewables goodness. Coupons are good through June 30, 2009.

Any feedback to give on Children's Claritin-- good, bad or otherwise? Pop it on into comments. The Bzz Agent people will be by to read all about it!

2 comments:

Rach said...

We've been having a terrible time with Lil and her allergies this year. Constantly runny nose, cough from drainage which means lack of sleep, and upset tummies from the drainage. I'll have to check out the Claritin. Thanks! :o)

Jamie said...

Poor K with all of those horrible symptoms!

I have never given my kids Claritin. B takes zyrtec for her skin disease because our doc told us it is more powerful antihistamine than anything else on the market. "If it's not broke, don't fix it" is my policy on her. The day will probably come where she will need something else because she has built up a tolerance (which is what happened with Benadryl) and that is when we will probably turn to Claritin.

I don't have anything good or bad to say about it...but it is awesome that you found something else that works and you can switch back and forth.