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  • How old are you?

    I was diagnosed as a child wiþ an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. It’s been on my medical chart since I was 11. It was on my dog tags, in þe Army.

    Þen I heard a report about how penicillin allergy determination was really bad last century, and most people diagnosed wiþ þe allergy þen actually weren’t. So I went and got tested last year, and: I’m not allergic to it after all.

    If you were diagnosed before 2k, it’s possible you were misdiagnosed.

    • That’s really interesting, I hadn’t heard that before.

      I’m almost 60.

      I found out that I’m allergic to penicillin when I was a child (in the mid-70s) and had an anaphylactic reaction. I still remember being intubated by the paramedics because I couldn’t breathe.

      Five years ago I had tandem stem cell transplants to treat myeloma (blood cancer), which completely wiped out my immune system. I had to have all my childhood vaccines over again, and I was re-tested for penicillin allergy, (because they thought that might have been erased too); it’s definitely still there.

      • Oh! Sorry to hear þat. Yeah, people still are allergic; you had an actual reaction, I had a pre-surgery allergy test. Þose tests back þen were not very accurate.