What happens if you drink a glass or two of alcohol after taking an antibiotic tablet?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
The mandatory consequence of the use of alcohol and antibiotics is a decrease in the effectiveness of treatment.When drinking alcoholic beverages, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, antibiotic-related disorders in the intestine, which are provoked by taking antibiotics, are increasing.
Violation of drug concentration
Antibiotics begin to act after they reach a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood.Due to the consumption of alcoholic beverages, the amount of medicine in the body decreases.
This type of medicine, when they try 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, increasing the resistance of pathogenic microflora to the action of antibiotics.And the disease itself, against prescribed antibiotics, has 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, interferes with the process of reabsorption of nutrients in the renal tubules.
Water reabsorption is also disrupted, which increases blood viscosity, and the concentration of antibiotics in the blood can change in the most unpredictable ways.
Characteristics of metabolism
Antibiotics are drugs that are metabolized in the liver.Busy processing ethyl alcohol, the liver does not have time to neutralize all possible intermediate metabolic products of the drug.
In addition, ethanol can affect the activity of liver enzymes and also react directly with antibiotics or their metabolites.These properties are expressed differently in antibacterial drugs.
One of the most dangerous features of combining drugs with ethyl alcohol is the interaction of this chemical compound with the development of disulfiram-like reactions.
Let's think about whether it is possible to drink alcohol, beer, while taking antibiotics, after that it is not dangerous to drink alcohol, and after that it is completely prohibited.
Disulfiram-like reaction
The disulfiram reaction is used to code for alcoholism, accompanied by nausea, cramps, cough, vomiting, shortness of breath, and a drop in blood pressure.
The same effect occurs quite often when taking the drug with ethanol.
Below is a list of after taking antibiotics and how long you should not drink alcohol.
The consequences of consuming ethanol during antibiotic treatment are dose dependent.
When you can drink alcohol after taking an antibiotic tablet or injection is calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to be removed 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 resembles the disulfiram molecule in structure, which gives a disulfiram-like reaction with ethyl alcohol.You can drink alcohol every day;in case of renal failure, extend the interval;
- fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics depress the nervous system and can cause coma.Take alcohol no earlier than after 1.5 days;
- tetracyclines - high risk of damage to liver hepatocytes;they are removed 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, and the toxicity of the drug increases.Drink alcohol no earlier than after 0.5 months;
- lincosamides - the central nervous system and liver are affected, the disulfiram reaction develops.You can drink alcohol 4 days after treatment;
- macrolides - the risk of liver cirrhosis increases, especially when taking erythromycin, they 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 beverages are prohibited!
The rate of removal of antibacterial drugs from different body environments is different.So, if aminoglycosides are removed from the blood of adults in an average of 2.5 hours, then from the inner ear fluid this time can be up to 350 hours.
If we take into account the ototoxicity of aminoglycosides, it is easy to understand that drinking alcohol within 2 weeks after treatment can cause deafness.
Interaction
Disulfiram-like reactions during treatment with antibiotics and alcohol consumption develop due to blocking the synthesis of enzymes that destroy ethanol molecules into simple substances.
The result is an increase in the blood concentration of the intermediate breakdown product of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde.The ethanol metabolite 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 is why the symptoms of a hangover the next day seem brighter and more difficult to tolerate.
Consequences
The combination of small doses of alcohol and drugs may not cause any symptoms, but when drinking large doses of alcohol, the side effects of both drugs and ethyl alcohol increase.
One of the most dangerous consequences of combining alcohol with antibiotics 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 an emergency signal.
The disulfiram reaction is caused by an increase in the concentration of acetaldehyde in the blood and is shown by the following symptoms:
- heartbeat;
- nausea, vomiting;
- hot flash, hot feeling;
- dizziness;
- stomach ache;
- sudden drop in pressure.
If the patient's blood alcohol level exceeds 125 mg/100 ml and the victim is not given help in time, then death is also possible.
How to combine
Some medicines absolutely cannot be combined with ethyl alcohol in any dose:
- nitroimidazoles;
- cephalosporins group;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after antibiotics can you drink alcohol?Is it possible to temporarily interrupt the course of treatment?
It is better not to combine antibiotics and alcohol at all and not to consume ethanol during treatment.If for some reason this is not possible and you need to drink alcohol, then you can calculate how long after drinking antibiotics you can use a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, the amount and strength of drinks taken.Thus, in a man weighing 70 kg, 100 g of vodka will be completely removed from the body in 5.8 hours, and 200 g of beer - in 1.44 hours.
It must be taken into account that all these calculations are approximate, and the actual rate of removal 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 the complete removal of antibacterial drugs from the body, it should take from 1 to 3.5 - 5 days.The elimination time depends on a person's health condition, age, and metabolic characteristics.
In most cases, drinking alcohol while taking a course of antibiotics weakens the effectiveness of the treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, provokes a disulfiram-like reaction, and is full of serious consequences.