Yes, as Glock-A-Roo said, Polysporin and Neosporin are NOT the same formulation - at least not here in the US. My wife is a Nurse Practitioner and she uses only Polysporin on patients because of the allergy/irritation potention with Neosporin (I can't remember if she said it was "allergy" or "irritation", so we'll go with Glock-A-Roo's statement that it is "allergy").

FWIW, Neosporin works fine on me - I have no problems with it. But others do.

Also, my wife said that slathering a bunch of antibiotic ointment on some wounds so that air cannot get to them will actually INCREASE the likelyhood that they will get infected despite the fact that you are slathering them with ANTIBIOTIC ointment. I guess it might depend on the specific bacteria or something. So keep that in mind when using these ointments - they can be helpful, but they are not a panacea.