How do allergy and intolerance differ?
Drug intolerance is a (faulty) reaction of the body’s own defence system to drugs taken or applied locally or their conversion/degradation products. The immune system falsely recognizes these as foreign or harmful and starts to fight them, which ultimately ends in an inflammatory reaction that can manifest itself in various ways (e.g. in the form of a skin rash). It is therefore a special type of allergy that can theoretically occur in any person at any time as a reaction to any medication. The only difference is a so-called pseudoallergy to drugs, which is not a classic allergy characterized by a false reaction of the immune system, but a reaction in which certain ingredients of the drugs directly activate certain cells in the body (mast cells) and stimulate the release of inflammatory substances (histamine).
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