September 21st, 2008 by admin

The skin can present several types of rashes, ulcers and blisters (skin rashes). Sometimes the skin returns to normal, but some rashes are durable and even dangerous to life. Many times the cause was not ever discovered. Often, the drugs ingested lead to various skin reactions.

Drug eruptions
This kind of eruptions are side effects of a drug.

The drugs can cause various types of eruptions. Most of them are the result of an allergic reaction to a drug. After taking the first dose (or subsequent) of a particular drug, a person can be sensitized to the drug. A subsequent exposure to the drug can cause an allergic reaction. Usually in a matter of minutes, although in some cases can take hours or days, suffering from a skin rash. Other allergy symptoms (such as nasal drip, watery eyes or an attack of asthma) may also accompany the eruption.

The drugs also cause rashes directly, without a allergic reaction. For example, corticosteroids (cortisone-like drugs) can cause acne and a thinning of the skin, while anticoagulants (blood thinners) can cause bruising when blood leaks under the skin.

Certain medications make the skin becomes particularly sensitive to the effects of sunlight (photosensitivity). These include certain antipsychotic drugs, tetracyclines, sulfonamides and some synthetic sweeteners. When taking the drug did not see any rash, but a subsequent sun exposure causes the skin to sometimes itching appears, or acquires a bluish gray color.

The drugs can cause almost any type of eruption, but the most important highlights the hives, toxic epidermal necrolysis, erythema polymorphous, the Stevens-Johnson syndrome and erythema nodosum.

Symptoms
The severity of the eruptions induced by drugs varies from a mild redness with bumps limited to a small area with a detachment of the whole of the skin. The eruptions can appear suddenly after taking a drug (for example, when it appears hives after taking penicillin) or can be delayed hours or days. In rare cases, the rash appears even years later, for example, arsenic can cause flaking of the skin, color changes and even cause cancer years after its ingestion.

Diagnosis
There are many causes of the eruptions and now there is no laboratory test that can confirm that a drug is responsible for a rash. Discover what the drug is responsible often complicated, because the rash may arise from a minimum amount of the drug and make it much after a person has taken, and they persist until weeks or months after it was interrupted the taking. Each and every drug that has taken the person may be suspects, including nonprescription; the eye drops for the nose and suppositories are possible causes. Sometimes the only way to determine the drug responsible for the rash is to interrupt the taking of all medications, except for those that are vital. As far as possible be replaced by other drugs chemically unrelated. If there are no substitutes for these, you should start taking drugs again one by one to determine what caused the reaction. However, this method may be risky if the person has presented a serious allergic reaction to the drug.

Treatment
Most of the reactions disappear after the suspension of the drug responsibly. When the rash is dry or cause itching, a corticosteroid ointment may help relieve symptoms. Despite that, generally, cases of urticaria quickly disappear without treatment, it may be necessary to resort to oral antihistamines or corticosteroids, the most serious eruptions are treated with an injection of adrenaline or a corticosteroid.