What if, after taking an antibiotic pill, you skip a glass or two of wine? When can you drink alcohol, how many hours or days after taking antibiotics can you drink alcohol so as not to harm your health?
Antibiotics and alcohol
The obligatory consequence of the use of alcohol and antibiotics is to reduce the effectiveness of treatment. When drinking alcohol, inflammatory processes develop in the intestine, and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, antibiotic-associated disorders in the gut are on the rise, caused by taking antibiotics.
Violation of drug concentration
Antibiotics begin to work after reaching a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood. Due to drinking the same alcoholic beverage, the amount of drug entering the body is reduced.
Such drugs, when antibiotics are tried after drinking alcohol, can be considered meaningless and even dangerous.
Violation of the treatment regimen, a decrease in drug concentration contributes to an increase in the resistance of the pathogenic microflora to the action of antibiotics. And the disease itself for which the antibiotic is prescribed will have a chance to turn from acute to chronic.
The concentration of the drug is reduced because the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde interferes with the reabsorption of nutrients in the renal tubules.
The process of water reabsorption is also impaired, increasing the viscosity of the blood, the concentration of antibiotics in the blood can change in the most unpredictable way.
Features of metabolism
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 drug's intermediate metabolism.
In addition, 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 features of combining drugs 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, take antibiotics, then drink alcohol is not dangerous and absolutely not later.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to encode alcoholism, which is accompanied by nausea, convulsions, cough, vomiting, shortness of breath, and a drop in blood pressure.
A similar effect occurs quite often when taking the drug with ethanol.
Here's a list after taking which antibiotics and how long you shouldn't drink alcohol.
The consequences of taking ethanol during antibiotic therapy are dose-dependent.
When, after taking medicine or injecting antibiotics, you can drink alcohol - they are calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to clear from the body.
List of antibiotics
Do not drink with alcohol:
- nitroimidazoles - do not combine with alcohol for up to 48 hours (the drug gives a disulfiram-like reaction);
- cephalosporins - the chemical structure of this group is similar to the molecular structure of disulfiram, which produces a disulfiram-like reaction with ethyl alcohol. You can drink alcohol every other day, when you have kidney failure, the drinking time will be longer;
- fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics that depress the nervous system and can cause coma. Drinking alcohol no earlier than 1. 5 days;
- tetracyclines - substances with a high risk of causing liver cell damage, are eliminated from the body for a long time. You can drink alcohol after 3 days;
- Aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, the side effects of the drug increase, the more toxic the drug is. Drinking alcohol for no more than 0. 5 months;
- lincosamides - the central nervous system and liver are affected, disulfiram reactions develop. You can drink alcohol 4 days after treatment;
- macrolides - increased risk of cirrhosis, especially when taking erythromycin, which is slowly eliminated from the body. Alcohol is allowed after 3, 5 days;
- anti-tuberculosis drugs - can cause drug-induced hepatitis with fulminant course. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited!
The rate at which antibacterial drugs are eliminated from different body environments is different. So, if aminoglycosides are eliminated from the blood in an average of 2. 5 hours in adults, this time from the inner ear fluid can be up to 350 hours.
Because of the ototoxicity of aminoglycosides, it is understandable that drinking alcohol within 2 weeks of treatment can cause deafness.
Interaction
Disulfiram-like reactions in antibiotic therapy and alcohol consumption develop by blocking the synthesis of enzymes that break down ethanol molecules into simpler substances.
The result is an increase in blood levels of an intermediate product of the breakdown of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. The ethanol metabolite acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethyl alcohol.
And liver enzyme deficiency, due to its detoxifying effect on the liver, reduces the synthesis of norepinephrine, which is why the symptoms of morning sickness appear brighter and more difficult to tolerate.
Effect
The combination of alcohol in small doses with drugs may not appear at all, but when drinking alcohol in large doses, the side effects of both the drug and the ethyl alcohol are increased.
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 drunkenness 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 is manifested by the following symptoms:
- palpitations;
- nausea vomiting;
- tides, feeling of heat;
- dizzy;
- stomachache;
- pressure drops sharply.
If the patient's blood alcohol level is higher than 125 mg / 100 ml and the victim is not treated in time, it can even lead to death.
How to combine
Some drugs absolutely must not be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dosage:
- nitroimidazoles;
- a group of cephalosporins;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days of antibiotics can I drink alcohol, can I stop the treatment for a while?
It is best not to combine antibiotics and alcohol at all and not to drink ethanol during treatment. If for some reason this is not possible and you must drink alcoholic beverages, then you can calculate the time to take antibiotics after drinking using a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, quantity and strength of drinks made. So, for a man 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 and intestines. and liver.
Output
To completely remove antibacterial drugs from the body, it takes 1 to 3, 5 - 5 days. Elimination time depends on health status, age, metabolic characteristics of each person.
In most cases, drinking alcohol while taking a course of antibiotics will reduce the effectiveness of the treatment, increase the side effects of the drug, cause a disulfiram-like reaction, and have many serious consequences.