Does your doctor really know what it means to be allergic to penicillin?
More often than not, doctors do give a helpful diagnosis, especially when it comes to detecting allergies. If you’ve been diagnosed with a penicillin allergy you might want to read on, though.
A recent study published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, shows that only 55% of doctors know some important facts about penicillin allergy.
Apparently, just over half of non-allergist physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners and pharmacists at Rochester Regional Health in New York State knew that a penicillin allergy can resolve over time. Comparatively, almost 80% of pharmacists knew this.
In addition to this statistic, more than 80 % of general practitioners surveyed knew that it’s important to refer a patient who has reported a penicillin allergy to an allergist for testing, but they never actually went ahead and did it.
According to the research, 9 out of 10 people who think they have penicillin allergy actually don’t. Most have never been officially tested to find out if they do, and those that have been tested may have outgrown the allergy itself.
Apparently, only about 20 % of patients who test positive for an allergy to penicillin are still allergic ten years after their first allergic reaction.
It’s pretty important to know if you do have a penicillin allergy or not. If it turns out that you aren’t still or actually allergic to it, you can now safely use antibiotics that are usually more effective than others in treating medical problems. Antibiotics with penicillin are also less expensive.
And if you ARE allergic, of course you’ll want to stay clear and use something else to treat what ails you, in order to stay healthy and safe.
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