What if you miss a glass or two of alcohol after taking an antibiotic pill? When can you drink alcohol, how many hours or days after antibiotics can you drink alcohol so as not to harm your health?
Antibiotics and alcohol
An obligatory consequence of the consumption of alcohol and antibiotics is a decrease in the effectiveness of treatment. When alcohol is consumed, inflammatory processes develop in the intestine, and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, the antibiotic-associated disorder in the intestine, which is provoked by the ingestion of the antibiotic, is intensified.
Violation of drug concentration
The antibiotic begins to work after it reaches a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood. By taking the same alcoholic drink, the amount of the drug in the body decreases.
Such drugs can be considered pointless and even dangerous when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol.
If the treatment regimen is violated, a decrease in the concentration of the drug contributes to an increase in the resistance of the pathogenic microflora to the action of the antibiotic. And the disease itself, for which an antibiotic is prescribed, gets a chance to transition from acute to chronic.
The concentration of the drug is reduced due to the fact that the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde disrupts the process of reabsorption of nutrients in the renal tubules.
The reabsorption of water is also impaired, which increases the viscosity of the blood and can change the concentration of the antibiotic in the blood in unpredictable ways.
Features of metabolism
Antibiotics are drugs that are metabolized in the liver. The liver is busy processing ethyl alcohol and does not have time to neutralize all possible products of the intermediate metabolism of the drug.
In addition, ethanol can affect the activity of liver enzymes and even react directly with the antibiotic or its metabolites. These properties are expressed differently in antibacterial drugs.
One of the most dangerous features of combining a drug with ethyl alcohol is the interaction of these chemical compounds with the development of a disulfiram-like reaction.
Let's find out if it is possible to drink alcohol, beer and antibiotics, after that it is not dangerous to drink alcohol, and after that it is absolutely impossible.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to code for alcoholism accompanied by nausea, seizures, cough, vomiting, shortness of breath, and a drop in blood pressure.
A similar effect often occurs when taking drugs containing ethanol.
Below is a list of which antibiotics you should not drink after taking and for how long.
The consequences of ingesting ethanol during antibiotic treatment are dose-dependent.
If you can drink alcohol after taking pills or antibiotic injections, they are calculated based on the time the antibiotic has been eliminated from the body.
List of antibiotics
Should not be consumed with alcohol:
- Nitroimidazole - do not combine with alcohol for up to 48 hours (drugs give a disulfiram-like reaction);
- Cephalosporins - The chemical structure of this group is similar in structure to a disulfiram molecule, which undergoes a disulfiram-like reaction with ethyl alcohol. You can drink alcohol every other day, in case of kidney failure the interval will be longer;
- Fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics, inhibit the nervous system and can cause coma. Do not take alcohol for 1, 5 days at the earliest;
- Tetracyclines - a high risk of damage to liver hepatocytes, is excreted from the body for a long time. You can take alcohol after 3 days;
- Aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, the side effects of the drug increase, the toxicity of the drugs increases. Do not take alcohol earlier than 0. 5 months;
- Lincosamides - if the central nervous system and liver are affected, a disulfiram reaction develops. You can drink alcohol 4 days after the treatment;
- Macrolides - the risk of cirrhosis of the liver increases, especially when taking erythromycin, are slowly eliminated from the body. Alcohol is allowed after 3, 5 days;
- Anti-tuberculosis drugs - can cause drug-induced hepatitis with a fulminant course. Alcoholic drinks are prohibited!
The rate of elimination of antibacterial drugs from different environments in the body is different. So if aminoglycosides are removed from the blood in adults in an average of 2. 5 hours, this time from the inner ear fluid can be up to 350 hours.
Given the ototoxicity of aminoglycosides, it is easy to understand that alcohol consumption can lead to deafness within 2 weeks of treatment.
interaction
By blocking the synthesis of enzymes that break down the ethanol molecule into simple substances, a disulfiram-like reaction develops in antibiotic treatment and alcohol consumption.
The result is an increase in the blood concentration of an intermediate product of the decomposition of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. The ethanol metabolite acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
And the lack of liver enzymes, which results from the toxic effect on the liver, leads to a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, which is why the symptoms of intoxication appear lighter and more difficult to tolerate the next morning.
effects
The combination of small doses of alcohol with medication may not occur at all, but when large doses of alcohol are consumed, the side effects of both medication and ethyl alcohol are aggravated.
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 poisoning and 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 in symptoms:
- Palpitations;
- Nausea, vomiting;
- Flood, feeling hot;
- Dizziness;
- Stomach pain;
- a sharp drop in pressure.
If a patient's blood alcohol level is higher than 125 mg / 100 ml and the victim does not receive help in a timely manner, even a fatal outcome is possible.
How to combine
Some drugs absolutely cannot be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dosage:
- Nitroimidazoles;
- a group of cephalosporins;
- Fluoroquinolones;
- Aminoglycosides.
How many days after antibiotic administration can you have drinks with alcohol, can you interrupt treatment for a while?
It is best not to combine antibiotics and alcohol at all and not to take ethanol during treatment. If for some reason this is impossible and you need to consume alcoholic beverages, then a special alcohol calculator can be used to calculate how long after alcohol to drink an antibiotic.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, the amount and strength of the drink consumed. So, in men weighing 70 kg, 100 g of vodka is 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 condition of the kidneys, intestines and liver.
output
It must take 1 to 3, 5 - 5 days for the antibacterial drug to be completely removed from the body. The elimination time depends on the state of health, age and the characteristics of the metabolism of a person.
In most cases, drinking alcohol while taking antibiotics weakens the effectiveness of treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, provokes a disulfiram-like reaction, and is fraught with serious consequences.