What if, after taking an antibiotic pill, you skip a glass or two of alcohol? 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 consumption of alcohol and antibiotics is a decrease in the effectiveness of treatment. When alcohol is consumed, inflammatory processes develop in the intestines, and local immunity decreases.
At the same time, the disorder associated with antibiotics in the intestine is increased, which is provoked by taking the antibiotic.
Violation of drug concentration
The antibiotic begins to act after reaching a sufficiently high therapeutic concentration in the blood. Due to the consumption of the same alcoholic drink, the amount of the drug in the body decreases.
Such drugs, when trying to take antibiotics after alcohol, can be considered unnecessary and even dangerous.
Violation of the treatment regimen, a decrease in the concentration of the drug contributes to an increase in the resistance of pathogenic microflora to the action of the antibiotic. And the disease itself, against which an antibiotic is prescribed, has a chance to change from acute to chronic.
The concentration of the drug is reduced due to the fact that the nephrotoxic metabolite of ethyl alcohol acetaldehyde disrupts the process of reabsorption of nutrients in the renal tubules.
Reabsorption of water 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.
Metabolism characteristics
Antibiotics are drugs that are metabolized in the liver. Busy with the treatment 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 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 see 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, accompanied by nausea, seizures, coughing, vomiting, shortness of breath, and low blood pressure.
A similar effect occurs quite often when taking drugs that contain ethanol.
Below is a list of antibiotics after taking them and for how long you should not drink alcohol.
The consequences of taking ethanol during antibiotic treatment are dose-dependent.
When, after taking pills or injections of antibiotics, you can drink alcohol - they are calculated based on the time it takes for the antibiotic to be excreted from the body.
List of antibiotics
Must not be consumed with alcohol:
- nitroimidazoles - do not combine with alcohol for up to 48 hours (drugs cause a disulfiram-like reaction);
- cephalosporins - the chemical structure of this group resembles a disulfiram molecule, resulting in a disulfiram-like reaction with ethyl alcohol. You can take alcohol every other day, with kidney failure the interval is lengthened;
- fluoroquinolones - synthetic antibiotics suppress the nervous system and can cause coma. Take alcohol no earlier than 1, 5 day;
- tetracyclines - a high risk of damage to hepatocytes in the liver, are excreted 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 toxicity of drugs increases. Take alcohol no earlier than 0. 5 months;
- lincosamides - the central nervous system and the liver are affected, a reaction to disulfiram develops. You can drink alcohol 4 days after treatment;
- macrolides - the risk of cirrhosis of the liver increases, especially when taking erythromycin, are slowly excreted from the body. Alcohol is allowed after 3, 5 days;
- anti-tuberculosis drugs - can cause drug-induced hepatitis with a fulminant course. Alcoholic drinks 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 in adults in 2. 5 hours on average, then from the inner ear fluid, this time can be up to 350 hours.
Considering 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 by 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 product of the decomposition of ethyl alcohol - acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde, a metabolite of ethanol, is more toxic than ethyl alcohol itself.
And the lack of liver enzymes, resulting from the toxic effect on the liver, causes a decrease in the synthesis of norepinephrine, which is why the symptoms of intoxication the next morning appear brighter and more difficult to tolerate.
Effects
The combination of small doses of alcohol with drugs may not appear at all, but when large doses of alcohol are consumed, the side effects of drugs 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 poisoning and is not recognized by others as a distress signal.
The reaction to disulfiram is caused by an increase in the concentration of acetaldehyde in the blood and is manifested by symptoms:
- palpitations;
- nausea Vomiting;
- tide, feeling hot;
- dizziness;
- stomach ache;
- a sudden drop in pressure.
If a patient's blood alcohol level is above 125 mg / 100 ml and the victim does not receive timely assistance, then even a fatal outcome is possible.
How to combine
There are certain drugs that absolutely cannot be combined with ethyl alcohol in any strength:
- nitroimidazoles;
- a group of cephalosporins;
- fluoroquinolones;
- aminoglycosides.
How many days after the antibiotics can you drink with alcohol, can you stop the treatment for a while?
It is better 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 drink alcoholic beverages, you can calculate how long after alcohol you need to drink an antibiotic using a special alcohol calculator.
The alcohol calculator takes into account a person's weight, the amount and strength of the drink taken. So, 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.
Go out
For the complete removal of the antibacterial drug from the body, it should take 1-3, 5-5 days. The elimination time depends on the state of health, age, characteristics of a person's metabolism.
In most cases, alcohol consumption during a course of antibiotics weakens the effectiveness of the treatment, increases the side effects of the drug, causes a disulfiram-like reaction and leads to serious consequences.