The History of Claratin is the history of perhaps the single most sucessful drug ever, the politics of the FDA and pharmaceutical companies, with prime precedence for generics and patent protection for originating companies, ie. those who invent the stuff. And throw in some prime examples of shady science. And mountains of money. WAY too long to go inot hear but to answer your Q quickly.
Its a low-dosage anti-histamine. Simple. The 'D' throws in some decongestant, but what you basically have is an anti-histamine.
Well, what's so bad about Histamines!!!???
Biology Experiment:
Take a key, or something sharp, but not TOO sharp, and find a nice white part of your skin, and draw a line with the object.
In a bit, you see some things happen. you will see the line begin to get red, and the line will eventually rise a bit. Congrats! You just triggered a Histamine Response!
Histamines are good in small doses doing what they do. When you scratched yourself, a cascade of chemical reactions and signalling occur such that blood is diverted to the area of damage. Blood = carrying the stuff to fight the bad guys and all that, so more blood in the area = let's get the 'heal-o-cules' on site. The Histamine response also causes the tissue to swell, blood vessels to either constrict or dialte, ditto for bronchia. The scratch? Substitute your eyes, your bronchial tubage, and a bunch of others, all leading, at worst, at Anaphylactic Shock. So Too many Histamine = No Good!
The bad news is most anti-histamines make you sleepy. So claritin comes along! Anti-allergy stuff that doesn;t make you drowsy! They made a mountain of money. Actually a mountain range.
Hey! Why do a lot of people say it doesnt do shit? Because they kept the dosage Just low enough such that the response of the primary anti-histamine [the ones that knock you on your ass] doesnt happen. Claratins active is a secondary, meaning it supposedly has less sedative effects. When it comes down to it? It's low dosage. It's anti-allergy M+Ms.
The pressure to make it an OTC drug, and a generic, and available for purchase from other countries and other things are the subject of heated debate, billions of dollars, and more then I could even write here.
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