I never had any allergy to meds until about 6 years ago when the Dr. thought I'd developed cellulitis at the site of a very nasty bruise sustained in a fall in the woods when my shin hit a rock or a limb on the ground. It evolved into a huge hemotoma and my leg was black from knee to toes. She gave me a shot of Rocephin because it stays in your system for 48 hours or more and is so well tolerated by geriatric patients. Within less than two minutes I staggered out of the treatment room in full anaphylactic shock and when I tried to call for help I couldn't breath in enough air with which to use my voice. Fortunately the Dr. came out of the adjoining treatment room, took one look at me, grabbed me and started shouting orders to whoever was within hearing. After three days in the ICU an orthopedic surgeon removed the monster hemotoma and after four days of culture it was negative for a single microbe. However they all said that bacteria like nothing better than dried blood as a culture so the surgery wasn't all for nothing. The leg took about six weeks to heal. A nurse friend tells me that in her 40 year career, mostly in geriatric nursing she has injected "gallons of the stuff" and never saw a negative reaction. I now wear the bracelet, have one on my key chain and a sticker in the window of my car. That drug is in the cephlasporin class so I can't take any of them.
After using Celebrex from the day it hit the market for osteo arthritis, three years ago I developed hives all over my body and scratched myself bloody and couldn't sleep for the itching. It took the dermatologist quite a while to figure it out since so many meds in my list had been introduced after that. It was, unfortunately, the one drug that meant the most for my quality of life. Can't take any of the over the counter anti-inflammatories as they all make me itch. I just take excedrin once or twice a day and make sure I get my exercise. What a bother.
Taking meds is like wearing a girdle, the problem simply appears as another problem which may be worse than the first one. An old Alka Seltzer ad used to say "Why trade a headache for an upset stomach?"