Are Your Patients Really Allergic To Antibiotics?
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- Published: Tuesday, 03 October 2023 07:38
- Written by Guy Tuggle
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Every patient’s dental records flag up their allergies, with antibiotics enjoying pride of place. Antibiotics are widely prescribed to treat dental infections and account for an estimated 10% of all antibiotic prescribing across NHS primary care.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society, however, is warning that millions of people have confused ‘side-effects’ with true allergy with the result that they are missing out on the most efficacious prescription for their problem.
Research suggests that around four million people have an ‘allergy to penicillin’ recorded on their medical records, however, when tested, 90% of them are not allergic.
Antibiotic allergies typically involve itchy skin, diarrhoea and a raised rash. Nausea, cough and running nostrils are also indicators. But antibiotics can also cause diarrhoea and nausea leading to a rash and these ‘side-effects’ do not automatically indicate an allergic reaction.
The consequences for patients labelled ‘allergic’ is being prescribed a raft of ‘second-choice antibiotics’ which can be less effective than penicillin and can take longer to work. Multiple prescriptions may be required.
Speaking to Nick Robinson on BBC Radio Four’s flagship ‘Today’ programme (28th September) Tase Oputu from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society said that the confusion between allergy and side effects can happen early on in a person’s life.
“They’ve had an antibiotic and they’ve experienced some sort of side effect of the antibiotic or even it could be a symptom of the infection they’re trying to treat and unfortunately it gets attributed to the antibiotic and they get mislabelled with having an allergy.
A strong allergic reaction would include tightness of the chest, wheeziness, very serious rash for example.”
The upshot of the mislabelling is that millions of people who would be helped by antibiotics are not taking them, something that Amena Warner, Clinical-Services Head of the charity Allergy UK said was being looked into via a “national effort”.
Ms Oputo advises people “the next time they see their GP or talk to their pharmacist to talk to them about their allergy and they will, then go through a series of questions with them to determine whether it is a true allergy”.
Waiting lists for allergy tests are long.
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