What happens 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?
Antibiotic and alcohol
A mandatory consequence of the use of alcohol and antibiotics is a reduction in the effectiveness of treatment. When alcohol is consumed, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, the antibiotic-related disorder in the gut, which is provoked by taking the antibiotic, increases.
Impaired drug concentration
The antibiotic begins to work after reaching a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood. Due to the intake of the same alcoholic beverage, the amount of the drug in the body decreases.
Such drugs, when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol, can be considered pointless and even dangerous.
Disruption of the treatment regimen, reducing the concentration of the drug contributes to increasing the resistance of the pathogenic microflora to the action of the antibiotic. And the disease itself, against which an antibiotic is prescribed, gets a chance to go from acute to chronic.
The concentration of the drug decreases due to the fact that the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde disrupts the process of reabsorption of nutrients in the renal tubules.
Water reabsorption is also impaired, which increases the viscosity of the blood, and the concentration of the antibiotic in the blood can change in the most unpredictable way.
Metabolic characteristics
Antibiotics are drugs that are metabolized in the liver. Busy with the processing of ethyl alcohol, the liver 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 characteristics of combining a drug with ethyl alcohol is the interaction of these compounds with the development of a disulfiram-like reaction.
Let's find out if it is possible to drink alcohol, beer, take antibiotics, then it is not dangerous to drink alcohol and then 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 is quite common when taking drugs with ethanol.
Below is a list of after taking which antibiotics and for how long you should not drink alcohol.
The effects of ethanol during antibiotic treatment are dose-dependent.
When you can drink alcohol after taking pills or injections of antibiotics - they are calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to be excreted from the body.
List of antibiotics
It should not be consumed with alcohol:
- nitroimidazoles - do not combine with alcohol for up to 48 hours (drugs give disulfiram - a similar reaction);
- cephalosporins - the chemical structure of this group in structure resembles a disulfiram molecule, which gives disulfiram - a similar reaction with ethyl alcohol. You can drink alcohol every other day, with kidney failure, the interval is prolonged;
- Fluoroquinolones - Synthetic antibiotics inhibit the nervous system and can cause coma. Take alcohol no earlier than 1, 5 days;
- Tetracyclines - a high risk of damage to liver hepatocytes, excreted by the body for a long time. You can drink alcohol after 3 days;
- aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, side effects of the drug increase, drug toxicity increases. Take alcohol no earlier than 0, 5 months;
- lincosamides - the central nervous system and liver are affected, a disulfiram reaction develops. You can drink alcohol 4 days after treatment;
- macrolides - the risk of liver cirrhosis increases, especially when taking erythromycin, it is excreted slowly 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 of the body is different. So, if aminoglycosides are removed from the blood of adults in an average of 2, 5 hours, then from the fluid of the inner ear this time can be up to 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 disulfiram-like reaction during 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 from the decomposition of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. The metabolite of ethanol acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
And the lack of liver enzymes, as a result of the toxic effect on the liver, causes a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, which makes the symptoms of intoxication the next morning seem brighter and more difficult to tolerate.
Effects
The combination of small doses of alcohol with drugs may not occur at all, but when large doses of alcohol are consumed, the side effects of both drugs and ethyl alcohol increase.
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 signal of disaster.
The reaction to disulfiram is caused by an increase in the concentration of acetaldehyde in the blood and manifests itself with symptoms:
- palpitations;
- nausea, vomiting;
- hot flashes, feeling of warmth;
- dizziness;
- stomach pain;
- a sharp drop in pressure.
If the patient's blood alcohol level is higher than 125 mg / 100 ml and the victim does not receive timely help, then even death is possible.
How to combine
Some drugs can absolutely not be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dose:
- nitroimidazoles;
- cephalosporin group;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after antibiotics can you drink alcohol, can you interrupt the course of 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 you can calculate how long after alcohol to take an antibiotic using a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, quantity and strength of the drink consumed. So, for men weighing 70 kg, 100 g of vodka will be completely eliminated from the body for 5, 8 hours, and 200 g of beer for 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 chemicals, but also on the condition of the kidneys, intestines and liver.
Exit
For complete removal of the antibacterial drug from the body should take from 1 to 3, 5 - 5 days. The time of elimination depends on the state of health, age, characteristics of a person's metabolism.
In most cases, drinking alcohol during a course of antibiotics weakens the effectiveness of treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, provokes a disulfiram-like reaction and is fraught with serious consequences.