Doctors have been urged to consider cold and flu tablets as a cause of geriatric seizure cases after an elderly man experienced a new-onset seizure triggered by pseudoephedrine and caffeine in OTC remedies. 

The 83-year-old patient presented to ED in Doha, Qatar with an “altered level” of consciousness associated with urinary incontinence. 

Earlier that day, he had taken one tablet of loratadine/pseudoephedrine 10mg/240mg and two tablets of paracetamol/caffeine 500mg/65mg for URTI symptoms including a runny nose and cough. 

The case authors say he was later found “snoring loudly in his bed with the bed sheets wet”.