r/emergencymedicine • u/Asleep-Palpitation43 Nurse Practiciner • Feb 02 '25

Advice Allergy Olympics

Is it wrong that if I see a patient has more than 10 allergies I IMMEDIATELY assume she's (bc it's always a she) a psych case?

In 24 years I've never been wrong.

You'll never read this in a textbook but add it to your practice today and thank me lateršŸ‘

496 Upvotes

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414

u/Embarrassed_Eye6497 Feb 02 '25

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4747833/

Number of patient-reported allergies helps distinguish epilepsy from psychogenic non-epileptic spells

154

u/keloid Physician Assistant Feb 02 '25

I like this because instead of "patients be crazy" it does help reframe polyallergy as a somatic reaction, like PNES.

But sometimes the patients do be crazy.

65

u/dirty_birdy Feb 02 '25

Wow. Thatā€™s amazing.

47

u/DoYouNeedAnAmbulance Feb 02 '25

FINALLY! Something that is not just true anecdotally! lol

12

u/fitforaqueen108 Feb 02 '25

I'm a lurking nurse and I'm really glad you shared that study : )

4

u/Aspirin_Dispenser Feb 03 '25

Thereā€™s another study floating around out there that found a strong correlation between the number of listed allergies in a patientā€™s chart and the likelihood and number of psychiatric diagnosis. I canā€™t for the life of me find it though.

1

u/roc_em_shock_em ED Attending Feb 05 '25

wtf I think I just found my research niche..."researching" the stuff all ER docs know to be true but that lack data.

-86

u/SunStrolling Feb 02 '25

In other šŸ—žļø news : doctors find intriguing association between two things they don't understand, thus confirming suspicion "patients are crazy".

32

u/VampireDonuts ED Attending Feb 02 '25

We're so glad you're here on r/emergencymedicine to contribute!! šŸŽ‰šŸ„³šŸŽŠ