Antibiotis and Alcohol

Hey Ashtray

I've seen dumber questions here, so keep it to yourself.

I took around 400 mg of antibiotics about 10 hours ago for an infection. 1 time dose, apparently works its magic over a few days. People are drinking, I want to drink heavily.

Thoughts?

Lion

Google the "* and alcohol" where * is the generic name of the antibiotic. Better yet, call the pharmacy you got the prescription from and ask. They are happy to answer questions like this. Best is if you can call your doctor and ask or if you have a nursing hotline connected to your insurance and ask them.

Fallingman

My understanding is that it can reduce the effectiveness of the antibiotics.

So, my thoughts are that it wouldn't be the sharpest thing to do. If it's a one-shot dose, then you probably don't want to fuck it up.

Hey Ashtray

You are right. I will show self control. Goddamn.

Fallingman

Condolences.
I will have a beer in your honour this evening.

Dark_Side

Hey Ashtray wrote: »

You are right. I will show self control. Goddamn.

Sucks I know, but drinking beer and partying isn't going to help you fight an infection properly anyway. But yeah, don't drink and take antibiotics if you can help it.

RubberAC

there are a lot of antibiotics you can still drink on
it just will make you feel sick a lot sooner, usually.

soxbox

Most antibiotics do not have much in the way of interaction with alcohol. You should be able to consult the documentation that came with the medicine, though it's best to double-check with the prescribing doctor or pharmacist as well.

Depending on your infection, that is the thing most likely to interact with the alcohol. A high carb alcohol will provide a bounty of sugars for some gastrointestinal baddies. Otherwise, unless either the infection or the antibiotics is something that impairs liver function, you should be fine.

... except that you said 'Heavy drinking', which is pretty much a bad idea if your immune system is compromised at all. A couple of drinks will probably be fine though if you normally have the self control to stop.

Slo

Fallingman wrote: »

Condolences.
I will have a beer in your honour this evening.

I'll have 6. So you're all caught up minus the drunkeness.

Hey Ashtray

haha, weeell good thing I didn't drink, because these antibiotics have a side effect that drinking causes the next day anyway.

Think about the word 'explosive'.

Tastyfish

Messes with how they are absorbed, not quite as bad as ant-nausea pills (which tends to allow them greater access across the blood/brain barrier, which is never a good thing even if you want the kid to go to sleep) but basically renders them somewhat pointless to take. Probably not going to cause you additional harm, but then you are taking antibiotics for a reason so 'additional harm' is a relative term. Don't underestimate how serious things that can be treated with simple antibiotics are - we're not talking preventing the sniffles and common colds, many of these things used to kill people.

Not that they will probably kill you, since you've got such a fantastic head start and are likely to be generally well nourished and in good health - but they can make you feel really bad for a few days until the pills work again.

In short, if you forget and drink you'll probably be fine, but the drugs won't work until you stop drinking (and you might not be at the peak of the infection/pain).

soxbox

Tastyfish wrote: »

In short, if you forget and drink you'll probably be fine, but the drugs won't work until you stop drinking (and you might not be at the peak of the infection/pain).

Antibiotics work on the bacteria - they're not attempting to affect an immune response or make your body do anything different - the antibiotic acts directly on the bacteria. This there is zero interaction between almost all antibiotics and alcohol (whereas other drugs which are attempting to make your body change will interact badly).

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/06/02/1380836.htm wrote:

The VD Clinics of the 1950s and 1960s gave the somber and serious advice that alcohol should absolutely not be used while taking penicillin. But there were no significant chemical interactions between penicillin and alcohol. The real reason that this advice was given was for moral reasons, not pharmacological reasons. The medicos of the day were worried that alcohol would reduce the inhibitions of the sufferers, and that, while under the influence, they might get a little "frisky" and pass on their infection to another person, before the penicillin had a chance to cure the sexually transmitted diseases.

That's how the mythconception that alcohol should never be taken with antibiotics arose.

Tastyfish

Didn't say there was, most significant alcohol drug interactions are about absorption rather than effect (though I'll admit, I'm not certain about anti-biotics). Has no effect on what the drugs to do the bacteria, just effects on whether your body is actually taking in the drug, alcohol has a whole bunch of odd things that get triggered as your body switches on the various functions to deal with it.

Walter

It would help if you told us the antibiotics and what they were for. If it says not to take with alcohol in the instructions then don't drink. Warnings are on there for a reason. General antibiotics are usually pretty benign but some do have alcohol interactions. Off hand, one of the antibiotics used to treat tb affects your liver bad enough that it can be fatal with alcohol (Isoniazid?). That's taken for a long duration and is a pretty stiff drug though.

tl;dr read the instructions

EskimoDave

I was told by a pharmacist that you shouldn't drink on antibiotics because the liver filters them out and if you drink it rapidly speeds up the filtering process as alcohol makes your liver really kick in. That's pretty much the short version of how she explained it to me. Being the drunken lout that I am I didn't heed her advice.