Last year I suffered a distressing reaction to the antibiotic amoxycillin. Because I was in a great deal of pain with a gum abscess (and have had penicillin in the past with no adverse affects), I accepted the antibiotic treatment without questions.

The rash that occurred three days after stopping the treatment was absolutely terrible, and I regret not taking evidential photos.A colleague was also prescribed amoxycillin last year, and has suffered what sounds to be an even more severe reaction.

I have since heard of others who have experienced adverse side effects and am left wondering why it is being prescribed. V W, Harlow, Essex....

WDDTY replies:

Both doctors and dentists underappreciate the potential side effects of this, the most commonly prescribed drug in America (and probably Britain too).

Aside from potentially fatal anaphylactic shock, requiring emergency treatment with epinephrine and oxygen, this variety of penicillin can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, rashes, Stevens-Johnson syndrome (a potentially fatal inflammation of the skin), anemia, lowering of blood cell counts, swelling of the lips, tongue and face, and illness called "serum sickness", causing arthritis and joint paints. And this is only a short list of what the manufacturer admits to in the Physician's Desk Reference (1995).

According to Harris Coulter (see p 12), an estimated 100-300 people

in the US die from anaphylactic shock from penicillin every year, and hypersensitivity reactions have been recorded in up to 10 per cent of people.

Another WDDTY reader overcame his tooth abscess infection with a week-long grape juice fast, plus hot baths with Epsom salts.

(WDDTY's editor treated her tooth abscess with a five-day course of tincture of berberis, a natural broad-spectrum antibiotic. But use this only under professional supervision.)