What happens if you drink 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
An obligatory consequence of the use of alcohol and antibiotics is a decrease in the effectiveness of treatment.When consuming alcoholic beverages, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, the intestinal disorder associated with antibiotics, caused by ingestion of the antibiotic, increases.
Violation of drug concentration
The antibiotic begins to act after reaching a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood.Due to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the amount of the drug in the body decreases.
This type of medication, when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol, can be considered useless and even dangerous.
Violation of the treatment regimen, a decrease in the concentration of the drug increases the resistance of pathogenic microflora to the action of the antibiotic.And the disease itself, against which an antibiotic is prescribed, has a chance of turning from acute into 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 blood viscosity, and the concentration of the antibiotic in the blood can change in the most unpredictable way.
Features of metabolism
Antibiotics are medications metabolized in the liver.Busy processing ethyl alcohol, the liver does not have time to neutralize all possible intermediate metabolic products 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 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 while taking antibiotics, after that it is not dangerous to drink alcohol and after that it is absolutely prohibited.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to code alcoholism, accompanied by nausea, cramps, cough, 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 which antibiotics and for how long you should not drink alcohol.
The consequences of ingesting ethanol during antibiotic treatment depend on the dose.
The time you can drink alcohol after taking antibiotic pills or injections is calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to be eliminated from the body.
List of antibiotics
Do not drink with alcohol:
- nitroimidazoles - do not combine with alcohol for up to 48 hours (the medicines cause a reaction similar to disulfiram);
- Cephalosporins - the chemical structure of this group resembles the disulfiram molecule in structure, which gives a disulfiram-like reaction with ethyl alcohol.You can drink alcohol every other day;in case of renal failure, the interval increases;
- fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics depress the nervous system and can cause coma.Do not take alcohol before 1.5 days;
- tetracyclines - high risk of damage to liver hepatocytes;they are eliminated from the body for a long time.You can drink alcohol after 3 days;
- aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, drug side effects increase, and drug toxicity increases.Drink 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 - increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, especially when taking erythromycin, they are slowly eliminated from the body.Alcohol is allowed after 3.5 days;
- antituberculosis medications - can cause drug-induced hepatitis with a fulminant course.Alcoholic drinks are prohibited!
The elimination rate of antibacterial drugs from different body environments differs.Therefore, if aminoglycosides are eliminated from the blood of adults on average in 2.5 hours, then from the inner ear fluid this time can reach 350 hours.
If we take into account the ototoxicity of aminoglycosides, it is easy to understand that alcohol consumption within 2 weeks after treatment can cause deafness.
Interaction
A disulfiram-like reaction during antibiotic treatment and alcohol consumption develops due to blocking the synthesis of enzymes that destroy the ethanol molecule into simple substances.
The consequence is an increase in the blood concentration of the intermediate product of ethyl alcohol degradation - acetaldehyde.The ethanol metabolite, acetaldehyde, is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
And the lack of liver enzymes, resulting from a toxic effect on the liver, causes a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, which is why the symptoms of toxicosis the next morning appear brighter and are more difficult to tolerate.
Consequences
The combination of small doses of alcohol and medication may not cause symptoms, but when consuming large doses of alcohol, the side effects of both the medication 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 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:
- heartbeat;
- nausea, vomiting;
- hot flashes, feeling of heat;
- dizziness;
- abdominal pain;
- a sharp drop in pressure.
If the patient's blood alcohol level is above 125 mg/100 ml and the victim does not receive timely assistance, even death is possible.
How to combine
Some medicines should absolutely not be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dosage:
- nitroimidazoles;
- cephalosporin group;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after antibiotics can you have alcoholic drinks?Is it possible to stop treatment for a while?
It is better not to combine antibiotics and alcohol and not to take ethanol during treatment.If for some reason this is not possible and you need to drink alcohol, you can calculate how long after drinking an antibiotic you can use a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account the person's weight, quantity and strength of the drink consumed.So, in 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 borne in mind that all these calculations are approximate, and the actual rate of elimination from the body depends not only on the properties of these chemical compounds, but also on the condition of the kidneys, intestines and liver.
Conclusion
For complete removal of the antibacterial drug from the body, it should take 1 to 3.5 to 5 days.Elimination time depends on the person's health status, age and metabolic characteristics.
In most cases, drinking alcohol during antibiotic treatment weakens the effectiveness of the treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, causes a disulfiram-like reaction and brings with it serious consequences.