Posted by Thomas/Munich (195.27.213.20) on April 18, 2001 at 16:03:23:
In Reply to: Use of Imitrex with previous sulfa drug allergy-anyone? posted by Dan C. on April 17, 2001 at 13:32:30:
Hi Dan,
congratulations to your chemist, he must be a very able man !
It's contraidicated to take sumatriptan(Imitrex)
if you have an allergy against sulfonamides, indeed, because it's true that sumatriptan is a triptan like all the others are, but it's also a sulfonamide - and zolmitriptan(Zomig) is not a sulfonamide! It means that the concerned side group of the indole molecule in sumatriptan is a methanesulfonamide and in zolmitriptan it's oxazolidinone, i.e. a completely different chemical compound.
So better don't try to force your doctor to inject you Imitrex in his practice - in the worst case the injection (or a sumatriptan pill, too) could kill you causing a deadly anaphylactic=allergic reaction of your organism.
Zolmitriptan in comparison is regarding a sulfa allergy harmless - hopefully it will help sooner or later.
And: Advices of laymen can sometimes be highly dangereous, even if the laymen are experienced patients...
ATB! Thomas,MD