In life, there are often situations where we have to take antibiotics and be invited to some kind of party at the same time. Therefore, the question of whether it is possible to drink alcohol while taking antibiotics is particularly acute in such cases. We will provide complete information on this issue below.
Treatment with antibacterial drugs is prescribed in numerous cases of bacterial and, less often, fungal infections. It is important to remember that the course of antibiotic treatment must never be interrupted. Its duration can be different, depending on the type of disease and its severity (from 3-7 days or more). The thought that it is necessary to "abandon" the festive life and not accept invitations to any meal frightens many. But in practice, not everything is that scary.
If you cope with this problem competently, from a medical point of view, you can attend parties with relatives and undergo antibiotic treatment.
The golden rule: always drink in moderation.
Under certain conditions, described below, you can of course combine alcohol with antibiotics. But when prescribing antibiotics, you need to be careful not to overload your body with excess alcohol. In any case, the ethanol gets inside you and all your defenses will be launched in the fight against it. And in the case of persistent illness, for example, these forces may be the last. Immunity will be further weakened and the recovery will be postponed to a boundless future. And in some cases describedbelow, even death is possible.
Myths about compatibility with antibiotics and alcohol
Scary stories that it is categorically impossible to combine antibacterial drugs and alcohol, most likely, began to spread immediately after the Second World War. At that time, STD clinics were simply overcrowded with soldiers and officers, carrying all the hardships of military life on their shoulders.
The doctors therefore categorically forbade their patients to take alcohol during antibiotic therapy, but not because of the damage to health resulting from the mixing of the latter, but for a very trivial reason: after drinking a glass, a soldier could " do everything "and get a new genital infection.
According to another version, the ban arose due to the high labor costs when receiving penicillin, strangely enough, it was evaporated from the urine of the treated military personnel. Therefore, in order to obtain medically pure medicine, they were forbidden to drink beer during the entire treatment period.
Since then, the theory of the dangers of mixing alcohol with antibiotics has become popular with people, and many still believe they cannot be combined. But what is the opinion on this issue of evidence-based medicine?
Research facts
It is known that in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, numerous studies were conducted on the effect of ethanol on various types of antibacterial drugs. The experiments were conducted on both laboratory animals and human volunteers. The results clearly showed that most types of antibiotics are unaffected by alcohol consumption.
All the antibiotics studied were effective both in the control group and in the experimental group, no global deviations were found in physico-chemical reactions (distribution of the drug throughout the body, mechanisms of absorption and excretion of decay products).
However, there is a hypothesis that alcohol increases the negative effects of antibacterial drugs on the liver. But in the medical scientific literature, cases of describing such situations are quite rare (up to 10 cases per 100, 000) and no special studies have been conducted in this area.
Antibiotics incompatible with alcohol exist
There are some types of antibacterial drugs that interact with alcohol and produce very unpleasant symptoms, called disulfiram-like reactions in medical practice.
This reaction occurs during the chemical interaction of ethanol and some specific antibiotic molecules, due to which a change in the metabolism of ethyl alcohol occurs in the body and accumulation of acetaldehyde is observed.
Signs of acetaldehyde poisoning:
- Vomiting, nausea.
- Bad headache.
- Cramps in the arms and legs.
- Increased heart rate.
- Heavy and intermittent breathing.
- Fever and redness in the chest, face and neck.
In these cases, when large doses of alcohol are taken, a fatal outcome is possible!
All of the above symptoms are very difficult for a person, so in many medical clinics a disulfiram-like reaction is used in the treatment of alcoholism (the so-called "coding").