What Is a Drug Allergy?

medical allergies

Generally, allergies are not more than a nuisance, sometimes they can be really very dangerous. Different allergies have different implication on the health. When allergen itself is a medication, condition becomes quite critical. It is not easy to avoid the medication to treat an ailment and when medication triggers allergy symptoms, troubles get doubled. Drug allergies can have adverse reactions, it is important to work with the best allergist to desensitize the allergies towards drugs. With right treatment, it is possible to minimize the sensitivity toward drugs.

Drug Allergy: The Basics

Drug allergies occur when your immune system responds to some medications with skin rashes, swelling, breathing troubles, and intestinal pain. Adverse drug reactions generally get triggered when people consume too much medicines or when one drug reacts with another.

Adverse drug reactions are experienced by most of the people at some point, but there are fewer true allergic reactions. Adverse drug reactions and drug allergies are more irritating than serious. In rare cases, these reactions can cause abdominal cramping, vomiting, breathing difficulty, dizziness and fainting.  Some reactions can be life threatening as well.

There are some groups of drugs that are known for triggering allergic reactions, they are:

  • Antibiotics
  • Aspirin
  • Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAID)
  • Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE)

Drug allergies are more common in women than men, infants and elderly people. However, anyone can develop the drug allergies at any point of the life. It is important to read the labels of the medicines before consuming them.

Drug allergy management and treatment

In order to prevent the allergic reactions due to drug, you have to avoid taking the culprit medications. You can consult with your healthcare service provider for substitute. Your healthcare service provider may also prescribe another drug that can normalize the allergic effects of other drugs.

If you want to treat your hypersensitivity towards medicines, you can visit the allergy clinic and take benefit from desensitization. In this process, the medical practitioner injects a small amount of allergen in your body to develop resistance in you. This process is continued for months and amount of allergen is increased over time.

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