What happens if, after taking an antibiotic pill, you skip a glass or two of alcohol? When can you drink alcohol, how many hours or days after antibiotics can you drink alcohol so as not to harm your health?
antibiotic and alcohol
An obligatory consequence of the use of alcohol and antibiotics is the decrease in the effectiveness of the treatment. When alcohol is consumed, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines and local immunity declines.
At the same time, it increases the antibiotic-associated bowel disorder, which is caused by taking the antibiotic.
Violation of drug concentration
The antibiotic starts to work after reaching a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood. Due to the ingestion of the same alcoholic beverage, the amount of the drug in the body decreases.
This medicine, when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol, can be considered useless and even dangerous.
Violation of the treatment regimen, the decrease in drug concentration contributes to the increased resistance of the pathogenic microflora to the antibiotic action. And the disease itself, against which an antibiotic is prescribed, has a chance of changing from acute to chronic.
The drug concentration is reduced by the fact that the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde interrupts the nutrient reabsorption process in the renal tubules.
Water reabsorption is also impaired, which increases blood viscosity, and the concentration of antibiotic in the blood can change in the most unpredictable way.
Metabolism Characteristics
Antibiotics are drugs metabolized in the liver. Busy with the processing of ethyl alcohol, the liver does not have time to neutralize all the possible products of the intermediary metabolism of the drug.
Furthermore, ethanol can affect the activity of liver enzymes and even react directly with the antibiotic or its metabolites. These properties are expressed in antibacterial drugs differently.
One of the most dangerous characteristics of combining a drug with ethyl alcohol is the interaction of these chemical compounds with the development of a reaction similar to disulfiram.
Let's find out if it's possible to drink alcohol, beer, take antibiotics, after which it's not dangerous to drink alcohol, and after that it's absolutely impossible.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to code for alcoholism, accompanied by nausea, seizures, coughing, vomiting, shortness of breath, and a drop in blood pressure.
A similar effect occurs quite often when taking medications with ethanol.
Below is a list of after taking which antibiotics and how long you should not drink alcohol.
The consequences of taking ethanol during antibiotic treatment depend on the dose.
When, after taking antibiotic pills or injections, you can drink alcohol - these are calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to be excreted from the body.
List of antibiotics
Not to be consumed with alcohol:
- nitroimidazoles - do not mix with alcohol for up to 48 hours (drugs have a similar reaction to disulfiram);
- Cephalosporins - The chemical structure of this group resembles a disulfiram molecule in structure, which gives a similar reaction to disulfiram with ethyl alcohol. You can drink every other day, with kidney failure, the interval is lengthened;
- fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics inhibit the nervous system and can cause coma. Do not drink alcohol for 1, 5 days;
- tetracyclines - a high risk of damage to liver hepatocytes, is excreted from the body for a long time. You can drink alcohol after 3 days;
- aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, drug side effects increase, drug toxicity increases. Drink alcohol not earlier than 0. 5 months;
- Lincosamides - the central nervous system and liver are affected, a disulfiram reaction occurs. You can drink alcohol 4 days after treatment;
- macrolides - the risk of liver cirrhosis increases, especially when taking erythromycin, they are slowly excreted by the body. Alcohol is allowed after 3, 5 days;
- anti-tuberculosis drugs - can cause drug-induced hepatitis with a fulminant course. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited!
The rate of elimination of antibacterial drugs from different environments in the body is different. Therefore, if aminoglycosides are removed from the blood of adults in 2, 5 hours, on average, the fluid in the inner ear can reach 350 hours.
Given the ototoxicity of aminoglycosides, it is easy to understand that drinking alcohol within 2 weeks of treatment can cause deafness.
Interaction
A similar reaction to disulfiram in antibiotic treatment and alcohol consumption develops due to blocking the synthesis of enzymes that break down the ethanol molecule into simple substances.
The consequence is an increase in the blood concentration of an intermediate product of the breakdown of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. The metabolite of ethanol, acetaldehyde, is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
And the lack of liver enzymes, due to the toxic effect on the liver, causes a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, so the symptoms of intoxication the next morning seem clearer and more difficult to tolerate.
Effects
Combining small doses of alcohol with medicine may not even appear, but when large doses of alcohol are consumed, the side effects of both drugs and ethyl alcohol are intensified.
One of the most dangerous consequences of combining alcohol with an antibiotic is a disulfiram-like reaction. The danger of this condition is that it is masked by alcohol intoxication and is not recognized by others as a distress signal.
The disulfiram reaction is caused by an increase in the concentration of acetaldehyde in the blood and manifests itself by symptoms:
- palpitations;
- nausea, vomiting;
- tide, feeling of heat;
- dizziness;
- stomachache;
- a sudden drop in pressure.
If a patient's blood alcohol level exceeds 125 mg / 100 ml and the victim does not receive timely care, even a lethal outcome is possible.
How to combine
Some medications absolutely cannot be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dosage:
- nitroimidazoles;
- a group of cephalosporins;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after antibiotics can you drink alcohol, can you stop the treatment for a while?
It is best not to combine antibiotics with alcohol and not to take ethanol during treatment. If for some reason this is impossible and you have to drink alcoholic beverages, you can calculate how long after alcohol to drink an antibiotic using a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, quantity and content of drink ingested. Thus, for men weighing 70 kg, 100 g of vodka will be completely eliminated from the body in 5, 8 hours and 200 g of beer in 1, 44 hours.
It should be noted that all these calculations are approximate, and the actual rate of excretion from the body depends not only on the properties of these chemical compounds, but also on the state of the kidneys, intestines, and liver.
Exit
For complete removal of the antibacterial from the body, it should take 1 to 3, 5 - 5 days. The elimination time depends on the health status, age, metabolic characteristics of a person.
In most cases, drinking alcohol during antibiotic treatment weakens the effectiveness of the treatment, increases the side effects of the medication, causes a reaction similar to disulfiram, and has serious consequences.