Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) is a potentially fatal skin condition with severe signs and symptoms. But without knowing what early SJS side effects usually look like, you may wrongly believe it’s a severe allergic reaction. Most drugs that trigger SJS (i.e., most NSAIDs and many over-the-counter children’s medicines) don’t mention it on their warning labels. As a result, hundreds of individuals each year, including young children, unknowingly experience this drastic condition without even realizing it. Since SJS requires emergency medical attention, knowing how to identify early symptoms could help save a patient’s life.

SJS Side Effects: Recognizing Early Warning Signs

If left untreated, SJS may progress rapidly and ultimately prove fatal for the affected patient. The early signs and symptoms used to diagnose someone with SJS side effects include:

• Fever
• Stinging eyes
• Difficulty swallowing
• Fatigue
• Cough

Most often, these signs and symptoms show up first — sometimes even 2-3 days before the remaining SJS side effects appear. Following these initial signs, your body should experience a painful skin disruption.

SJS Side Effects: What Second-Wave Symptoms Look Like

These second-wave SJS side effects may include:

• Unexplained widespread skin pain
• A red or purple skin rash that spreads easily
• Blisters on your skin as well as the mucous membranes located around your mouth, nose, eyes and genitals
• Shedding large areas of skin within days after blisters form
• Conjunctivitis
• Ocular discharge

The second phase usually involves large skin patches peeling completely off. Blisters, erosions, and detachable skin characterize the body’s severe drug reaction.

While these are the most common indicators that someone’s experiencing SJS side effects, there could be other early signs. Parents, in particular, should be vigilant about watching their children for early warning signs before second-phase SJS side effects begin.

SJS Side Effects: Possible Long-term Complications for Untreated Patients

If the disease goes untreated, the following complications may occur:

• Secondary skin infection (cellulitis), which can lead to sepsis
• Blood infection (sepsis)
• Eye problems, including extensive tissue damage, scarring, and even blindness
• Lung involvement (including respiratory failure)
• Permanent skin damage (which may include discoloration and scarring) as well as hair, fingernail and toenail loss

How to Treat Suspected SJS Side Effects

It’s vital that you seek medical attention immediately when experiencing any skin reaction that looks like SJS side effects. It’s sometimes hard to diagnose this rare but potentially fatal reaction, but your doctor can investigate what triggered it. Typically, patients develop SJS side effects after taking a new prescription or over-the-counter medication or in response to an infection. You may experience SJS side effects within hours of taking the trigger medication, or up to two weeks after discontinuation.

Getting quick medical care is the best chance at defeating the condition before it progresses. A 2010 multicenter study on this rare condition included 15 regional burn centers that admitted 199 SJS patients. Researchers found patients transferred to a burn unit within seven days of showing SJS symptoms had significantly higher survival rates. Early stage SJS patients admitted to burn units within seven days had a 32% mortality rate, according to the study. However, that number jumped to 51% for SJS patients transferred to burn units over a week after the disease’s onset.

How SJS Victims Can Get Compensated for Their Injuries

Because this condition is rare, many patients don’t realize they have SJS until they’re in serious danger. And since most drug manufacturers don’t list SJS side effects on medication warning labels, patients fail to make the connection. Many patients taking common medications like ibuprofen, antibiotics, Tylenol and even Children’s Motrin develop SJS side effects, yet go untreated. As a result, victims’ families end up filing wrongful death lawsuits against the implicated drug’s manufacturer. Patients who survive their SJS side effects can also file failure to warn and medical malpractice claims. Since doctors diagnosed the first SJS side effects case in 1922, this condition is not new. Because many SJS survivors require costly skin grafts, we can help them the compensation and justice they deserve through litigation.