Allergic to Penicillin....

So anyway, as promised, here's my update on what happened to me last week.

It seems that I'm allergic to penicillin. Or, at the very least, I'm sensitive to penicillin.

To be clear, this is not a lot of fun. I thought I'd write this in case, like I did, someone is looking for information on what to expect, but all they can find on-line is loads of information about what happens when you're a young child and you react to penicillin. For the record, I'm male, and I'm 25 (ouch).

I was taking amoxicillin for 6 days when the rash began. At first, it appeared only on my arms and a corner of my chest. Ironically, I finished the course of the drugs (amoxicillin, in my case) on day 6.

I woke up on day 7 and everything was covered in rash except for my hands, my face and one other rleatively important part of my anatomy (thank the lord). By day 8, the rash has spread to the hands. By day 9 (yesterday), my eyes were being affected. I currently horrible light sensitivity (looking at the screen at the moment is verging on the intolerable), and my eyes although burning, although not particularly red.

I have been to the doctors 3 times - on day 7, day 9 and day 10. They expect the rash to clear up in a week or so. The original reason I was taking amoxicillin (sinusitis) has been re-evaluated, and a steroid spray prescribed. My GP - who was excellent - said that anitbiotics are a complete waste of time with sinusitis (just so you know).

The rash itself was fucking itchy. And when I say itchy, I mean itchy. It was sodding horrible. Really bad. But it didn't blister, and it tended to spread overnight rather than during the day. It's signficnatly worse after a shower, and it's pinky/red. It fades when I touch it, then comes back. It is fading day by day, so in theory by day 13 things should get better.

Of course, knowing all this did wonders for my anxiety. But of course, that would be too easy. Yesterday, when the eye thing started up, I thought, of course, that I was going blind. Endless, endless, endless Googling made it worse. The nurse I saw this morning didn't seem to arsed about it. She said to bathe them using cooled boiled water and to keep the light balance comfortable and it'll pass. But I still suspect I'm either going blind, in the early stages of anaphalxis [sp] or getting Stevens Johnson Syndrome, which sounds exceptionally nasty, is very rare and which I only found out about because I was convinced I was going blind and I Googled it.

I need to learn to relax about these things. Writing this down has helped immensely. And having a few days off from work will probably also help :-)