What happens if you skip a glass or two of alcohol after taking an antibiotic pill? When you can drink alcohol, how many hours or days after 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 a reduction in the effectiveness of treatment. When alcohol is consumed, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines and local immunity declines.
At the same time, the intestinal disorder associated with antibiotics increases, which is caused by the intake of antibiotics.
Violation of 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 medicine in the body decreases.
Such drugs, when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol, can be considered pointless and even dangerous.
Violation of the treatment regimen, reducing the concentration of the drug contributes to increasing the resistance of pathogenic microflora to the action of antibiotics. The disease itself, against which an antibiotic is prescribed, has the opportunity to go from acute to chronic.
The concentration of the drug is reduced due to the fact that the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde interferes with the process of nutrient reabsorption in the renal tubules.
Water reabsorption is also impaired, which increases blood viscosity, and the concentration of antibiotics 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 indirect drug 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 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, take antibiotics, after which it is not dangerous to drink alcohol, and after which it is absolutely impossible.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to encode alcoholism, followed by nausea, seizures, coughing, vomiting, shortness of breath, and a drop in blood pressure.
A similar effect occurs quite often when taking drugs with ethanol.
Below is a list after taking which antibiotics and how long you should not drink alcohol.
The consequences of taking 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 eliminated 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 a reaction similar to disulfiram);
- cephalosporins - the chemical structure of this group resembles the structure of the disulfiram molecule, which gives a reaction similar to disulfiram 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 liver hepatocyte damage, they are excreted from the body for a long time. After 3 days you can take alcohol;
- aminoglycosides are ototoxic, nephrotoxic, drug side effects 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 - increases the risk of liver cirrhosis, especially when taking erythromycin, which is slowly excreted from the body. Alcohol is allowed after 3. 5 days;
- anti-tuberculosis drugs — can cause hepatitis caused by drugs with a fulminant course. Alcoholic beverages are prohibited!
The rate of elimination of antibacterial drugs from different environments in the body is different. Thus, if aminoglycosides are removed from the blood in adults in an average of 2. 5 hours, then from the fluid from the inner ear this time can be up to 350 hours.
Given 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 in antibiotic treatment and alcohol consumption develops due to blocking the synthesis of enzymes that destroy the ethanol molecule to simple substances.
The consequence is an increase in the concentration in the blood of the intermediate decomposition of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. The metabolite ethanol acetaldehyde is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
Lack of liver enzymes, which is a consequence of the toxic effect on the liver, causes a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, which makes the symptoms of intoxication the next morning appear brighter and more difficult to tolerate.
Effects
The combination of small doses of alcohol with medications may not occur at all, but when large doses of alcohol are consumed, the side effects of both medications 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 others do not recognize it as a signal of danger.
The reaction of disulfiram is caused by an increase in the concentration of acetaldehyde in the blood and is manifested by symptoms:
- palpitations;
- nausea, vomiting;
- tide, feeling of heat;
- dizziness;
- abdominal pain;
- a sudden drop in pressure.
If the patient's blood alcohol level is higher than 125 mg / 100 ml, and the victim is not given timely help, then even a fatal outcome is possible.
How to combine
Some drugs absolutely cannot be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dose:
- nitroimidazoles;
- cephalosporin group;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after taking 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 not possible and you have to consume alcoholic beverages, then you can calculate how long after alcohol you have to take the antibiotic using a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, the amount and strength of the drink consumed. 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 condition of the kidneys, intestines and liver.
Output
It takes 1 to 3, 5 - 5 days to completely remove the antibacterial drug from the body. The time of elimination depends on the health condition, age, characteristics of the person's metabolism.
In most cases, alcohol consumption while taking antibiotics weakens the effectiveness of treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, causes a reaction similar to disulfiram and has serious consequences.