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Are you allergic to penicillin? Perhaps you have a friend or relative who is? With about\u00a0one in ten\u00a0people reporting a penicillin allergy, that\u2019s not altogether surprising.<\/span><\/p>\n Penicillin is the\u00a0most commonly reported\u00a0drug allergy. But the key word here is \u201creported\u201d. Only about 20% of this 10% have a true penicillin allergy \u2013 so the figure would be one in 50 rather than one in ten.<\/span><\/p>\n People may experience symptoms they think are a result of taking penicillin, but are actually unrelated. If these symptoms are not investigated, they continue with the belief that they should steer clear of penicillin.<\/span><\/p>\n This can become a problem if a person is sick and needs to be treated with penicillin. Penicillin and related antibiotics are the most common group of drugs used to treat a\u00a0broad range of infections, from chest or throat, to urinary tract, to skin and soft tissue infections.<\/span><\/p>\n The overestimation of penicillin allergies is also not ideal because it means people are being treated with a broader range of antibiotics than necessary, which contributes to the problem of antibiotic resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n To understand more about why so many people think they\u2019re allergic to penicillin, we need to look at a brief history of the drug.<\/span><\/p>\n Penicillin (benzylpenicillin or Penicillin G) was\u00a0first discovered\u00a0in 1928 and first used in 1941.<\/span><\/p>\n It was grown from a mould, as it is today. The liquid nutrient broth the mould grew in was drained, and the penicillin purified from it.<\/span><\/p>\n In the 1930s and 40s, and even through the 1960s and 70s, purification techniques were not as efficient as they are today. So, many early allergic reactions are thought to be due to impurities in the early penicillin products \u2013 especially injections.<\/span><\/p>\n Penicillin and the range of antibiotic compounds that followed it revolutionised how we treat bacterial infections.<\/span><\/p>\n This led to widespread, and sometimes inappropriate, use of these medicines. Antibiotics\u00a0do not work against viruses, but are sometimes prescribed for bacterial infections that occur while people have viral infections such as glandular fever.<\/span><\/p>\n We know using penicillin while a person has glandular fever can cause a rash that looks like penicillin allergy but is not related.<\/span><\/p>\n People may report symptoms to their health professionals that seem like a reaction to penicillin. Perhaps these symptoms are not fully investigated because it takes time and can be expensive \u2013 they\u2019re just put down to the common penicillin allergy.<\/span><\/p>\n Further, some people perceive other side effects of a penicillin antibiotic such as nausea or diarrhoea as an allergy, when these are not, in fact, allergy symptoms.<\/span><\/p>\n From this point, the penicillin family will not be used to treat these patients.<\/span><\/p>\n An allergy to penicillin can also limit the use of some other antibiotics\u00a0which may cross-react\u00a0with the allergy.<\/span><\/p>\n Cross reaction occurs when the chemical structure of another antibiotic is so similar to the structure of penicillin that the immune system gets confused and recognises it as the same thing.<\/span><\/p>\n To avoid this, doctors need to look to antibiotics from other medication classes when prescribing patients with a documented penicillin allergy.<\/span><\/p>\n But we need to be careful when drawing on a wider range of antibiotics. This is because the more bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, the more likely they are to develop resistance to these antibiotics.<\/span><\/p>\n To address the growing problem of antibiotic resistance, we now try to restrict antibiotics as much as possible to the lowest level one that will kill the specific bacteria.<\/span><\/p>\n We don\u2019t kill tiny ants in our gardens with a sledgehammer, so likewise, we use a narrow-spectrum antibiotic wherever possible to keep the broad-spectrum antibiotics for severe and complex infections.<\/span><\/p>\n The penicillin family contains both narrow and broad-spectrum antibiotics. Ruling out this family and its \u201ccousins\u201d when we don\u2019t need to can limit the choice of antibiotics and increase the chance of making other antibiotics less useful.<\/span><\/p>\n Studies show penicillin allergy\u00a0reduces over time. So even if you did have a true penicillin allergy, it may have gone away over several years.<\/span><\/p>\n Under the guidance of your doctor, it is possible to be tested to see if you\u2019re allergic \u2013 or still allergic \u2013 to penicillin.<\/span><\/p>\n A skin \u201cscratch\u201d test involves injecting a small amount of penicillin and monitoring for a reaction. Rescue medications will be on hand in case you do have a severe reaction. Your GP will probably refer you to an allergy specialist to get this done.<\/span><\/p>\n If you have been told you\u2019re allergic, you should first try to find out when the reaction occurred and what happened in as much detail as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n Let your GP know all this information and he or she can then decide whether a skin test might be appropriate.<\/span><\/p>\n Do not try a test dose at home \u2013 the risk of a life-threatening reaction is not worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n And if you believe you are allergic to penicillin, the most important thing to do is tell each health professional (doctor, pharmacist, nurse, dentist, etc.) you come into contact with.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n * Published in print edition on 16 August 2019<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" About 10% of people believe they’re allergic to penicilin. Only about 2% actually are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":21794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8348],"tags":[18196,5986,5987],"class_list":["post-21793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-conversation","tag-antibiotic-resistance","tag-antibiotics","tag-penicillin"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Penicillin.jpg?fit=866%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-5Fv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Yes, penicillin comes from mould<\/span><\/h4>\n
The problem of antibiotic resistance<\/span><\/h4>\n
Can I get tested?<\/span><\/h4>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/08\/Greg-Kyle.jpg?resize=55%2C70&ssl=1\")
Greg Kyle<\/strong><\/span>
\n<\/span>Professor of Pharmacy, <\/span>
\nQueensland University of Technology<\/span><\/p>\n
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