Antihistamines are bad!!

[osuman]

Hello,

It seems to me that logically, antihistamines have to reduce the body's ability to fight off a cold or infection.

 

For example...

 

Let's say I have 2 events taking place in my body at the same time.

 

Event 1: On Monday I contract a cold virus from my girlfriend and start showing symptoms. My understanding of one of the many things that is taking place inside me is that my granulocytes and other things are releasing histamine to fight this virus. The purpose of this histamine is to signal to other antibodies "Hey buddies, I need some help over here". The other antibodies get this message and come help fight the virus.

 

Event 2: On Wednesday, I go over to a friends house that has a bunch of cats, which I am allergic to. Because of my allergic reaction, I take an antihistamine such as Benadryl. Again, my understanding of the allergic reaction in my body is that it has incorrectly identified whatever it is that comes from cats as something that needs to be fought off, much like the virus in event 1. Part of this process is the release of histamine, again, just like event 1. So, I took the Benadryl to suppress this histamine release, thereby reducing my discomfort.

 

So the question is, if the Benadryl suppresses the histamine for the cat stuff, doesn't it also suppress the part that is helping fight the virus? If so, isn't the Benadryl, in effect, suppressing my ability to fight the virus?

[Dak]

it depends on the distribution of the antihystamines throughought your body. If you use a nasal spray for hay-fever, then the antihistamines are (presumably) only present in significant quantities in your nose, where they will prevent the hystamine from causing you to sneese when pollen goes up your nose, and presumably also prevent you from sneezing if you have a cold

 

the tablets will probably be distributed about your entire body, and will suppress the entire immune system by interfering with the hystamines, but i doubt that the effects would be dangerously severe.

 

i always stop taking my antihistamines if i get ill, but im not sure how much of an effect it has.

 

btw, i dont think that histamine is a signalling molecule as such, (interlukiens are used by white blood cells to communicate with one-another), but rather directly illicits an irritant-responce from the surrounding tissue; mucouse membranes will leak water and spazm in order to flush and, umm, 'spazmicate' the irritant out (sneese in the nose, cough in the throaght and lungs, diohreahh in the bowels), histamine in the stomach causes vomiting (i believe) and histamine in the skin causes sweating and ichyness, so that youll scratch whatever is irritating you off of your skin.

 

in other words, its desighned to expel undesireable substances from your body and not directly involved in the fighting of bacteria/viruses (if i remember correctly)

[NPK]

The purpose of this histamine is to signal to other antibodies "Hey buddies' date=' I need some help over here". The other antibodies get this message and come help fight the virus.

[/quote']

Antibodies don't play a huge part in combatting viral infections do they? My understanding is that viruses (and their host cells) are predominately targeted by the cell mediated immune system rather than the humoral immune system.