This site is intended for healthcare professionals

Go to /sign-in page

You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Penicillins (general side-effects)

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

The principal side-effects of the penicillins are;

  • hypersensitivity resulting in urticaria, fever, joint pains and occasionally anaphylaxis. The hypersensitivity is related to the basic penicillin structure and therefore a patient hypersensitive to one penicillin will be hypersensitive to all. Note that it is important to clarify the history in penicillin hypersensitivity - the patient may have a different understanding of the word allergy to the physician.
  • encephalopathy which occurs with high doses or normal doses in people with renal failure. For this reason the penicillins cannot be given intrathecally.
  • diarrhoea with oral therapy especially with ampicillin and its derivatives which may also cause pseudomembranous colitis.

Related pages

Create an account to add page annotations

Add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation, such as a web address or phone number. This information will always be displayed when you visit this page