An adverse reaction to penicillin may lead you to mistakenly believe that you are allergic. For example, penicillin may upset your stomach. For example, you may have a series of headaches or unpleasant symptoms while you are taking the antibiotic, but something else is causing those problems.
Your doctor must find alternative antibiotics if you have a penicillin allergy. And alternative antibiotics often:.
The negative skin testing implies that penicillin can be taken without an increased risk for allergic reaction compared with the general population. Skin testing for a penicillin allergy is commonly performed and can be done safely — even in patients who are critically ill or who have had serious reactions to penicillin, Dr. To ensure that your skin reacts normally, a nurse will apply both a saline solution and a histamine solution. If your skin reacts to the saline, that means your skin is too sensitive and the test cannot be interpreted.
The histamine solution should cause a red, raised, itchy area, similar to a mosquito bite. If there is no reaction, your skin test may not show an allergy even if you have one, and for this reason the test cannot be interpreted. If your skin does not react to the saline, but reacts to the histamine, this validates the skin test: Your skin has the capacity to react to a potential allergen. At the same time, a nurse places liquid drops of penicillin on your skin and scratches through the liquid so that it gets underneath the top layer of your skin.
Amoxicillin and penicillin are very similar drugs. The following table lists their features side by side. Amoxicillin and penicillin are both used to treat bacterial infections. Your doctor may do a susceptibility test to find out which drug may be better for your type of infection.
For this test, your doctor collects a sample of your body fluid, such as saliva or urine. They send the sample to a lab to find out which strain of bacteria is growing in your body. Then, they choose the drug that best treats the infection caused by that type of bacteria. The chart below lists examples of the different types of infections that amoxicillin and penicillin can be used to treat. Amoxicillin and penicillin are both available as generic drugs.
Generic medications are copies of brand-name medications. They have the same features as brand-name versions, such as dosage, intended use, side effects, and route of administration.
However, generic medications typically cost less than brand-name medications. Therefore, penicillin and the generic versions of amoxicillin are likely cheaper than the brand-name versions of amoxicillin. Both amoxicillin and penicillin are typically covered by most health insurance plans without a prior authorization. Brand-name medications, on the other hand, may require a prior authorization.
A prior authorization is when your insurance provider requires extra steps before they will pay for your medication. For example, they may ask you to try the generic version first before they will pay for the brand-name drug.
Both amoxicillin and penicillin can cause side effects. Call your doctor if you have any serious side effects when using these drugs. Amoxicillin and penicillin also interact with similar medications. An interaction is when a substance changes the way a drug works. This can be harmful or prevent the drug from working well. The table below lists examples of drugs that most often interact with amoxicillin and penicillin.
This can help your doctor prevent possible interactions. Certain medications can make certain health conditions or diseases worse. For example, if you have severe kidney disease, you should talk with your doctor before taking amoxicillin or penicillin. Also ask your doctor if you can use amoxicillin and penicillin safely if you have severe allergies or asthma. Signs and symptoms of penicillin allergy often occur within an hour after taking the drug.
Less commonly, reactions can occur hours, days or weeks later. Anaphylaxis is a rare, life-threatening allergic reaction that causes the widespread dysfunction of body systems. Signs and symptoms of anaphylaxis include:. Less-common penicillin allergy reactions occur days or weeks after exposure to the drug and may persist for some time after you stop taking it. These conditions include:. You may experience side effects of penicillin — as happens with other medications — that are not an allergic reaction to the drug.
Depending on the type of penicillin, common side effects may include mild nausea or diarrhea, headache, or vaginal itching. Signs or symptoms of an infection for which you are being treated — or unrelated symptoms — also may be mistaken as an allergic drug reaction.
See your doctor as soon as possible if you experience signs or symptoms of penicillin allergy. It's important to understand and discuss what is an allergic reaction, what is a typical side effect and what you can tolerate in taking a medication. Call or emergency medical help if you experience signs of a severe reaction or suspected anaphylaxis after taking penicillin. Penicillin allergy occurs when your immune system becomes hypersensitive to the drug — mistakenly reacting to the drug as a harmful substance, as if it were a viral or bacterial infection.
Before the immune system can become sensitive to penicillin, you have to be exposed to the medication at least once. If and when your immune system misidentifies penicillin as a harmful substance, it develops an antibody to the drug. The next time you take the drug, these specific antibodies flag it and direct immune system attacks on the substance. Chemicals released by this activity cause the signs and symptoms associated with an allergic reaction. Previous exposure to penicillin may not be obvious.
Some evidence suggests that trace amounts of it in the food supply may be sufficient for a person's immune system to create an antibody to it. Penicillins belong to a class of antibacterial drugs called beta-lactam antibiotics.
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