Drug Allergy or Side Effect? Knowing the difference could save your life

There is a common misconception that any adverse reaction to a drug is an allergy. That is definitely not the case.

Reporting to your doctors that you have an allergy to a medication when what you really had was a side effect could potentially create a substantial alteration to your medical care in the future. And this could mean a physician may avoid using a drug that could possibly save your life because of the fear of an allergic reaction.

An anaphylactic allergic reaction generally...

Eye doctors typically pride themselves on being able to improve someone’s vision through either glasses or contact lens prescriptions. Whether it’s a first-time glasses wearer, or someone having either a small or large change in their prescription, we like to aim for that goal of 20/20 vision.

Despite our best efforts, however, correcting vision to 20/20 is not always a positive outcome for the patient. Whether someone will be able to tolerate their new prescription is based on something...