Think your child has a penicillin allergy? Maybe not.

Follow me on Twitter @drClaire Allergies to penicillin are the most commonly reported medication allergy. This can be a real problem; if you are allergic to penicillin, it’s not just penicillin you can’t take. You can’t take amoxicillin and other antibiotics that are extremely similar, and it’s iffy whether or not you can take cephalosporins (such as cephalexin or cefdinir), a whole other really useful and commonly used class of antibiotics. See, that’s the thing: with most common infections such as ear infections, strep throat, or skin infections, if we can’t give you penicillin we end up with limited choices. Some of those choices don’t work as well — and some of them are stronger than we’d like, with more side effects. Now, this would be just an unavoidable reality of life for penicillin-allergic people, if it weren’t for the simple fact that a lot of them aren’t allergic to penicillin at all. How does this happen? Well, the diagnosis of drug allergy is generally what we call a “clinical diagnosis,” based on signs and symptoms rather than an actual test. Drug allergies can cause lots of different symptoms, such as rash, vomiting, and diarrhea. When a patient who is on a medication develops one of these symptoms, doctors very often end up diagnosing an allergy to be on the safe side. After all, drug allergies can be life-threatening, and reactions after the first one are often more serious. But there are pitfalls to this. First of all, sometimes do...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Asthma and Allergies Children's Health Drugs and Supplements Infectious diseases Parenting Safety Source Type: blogs