You should also avoid taking Levaquin with alcohol, as its effects can increase, causing dizziness and impaired judgement. All of these factors can reduce your body’s ability to heal from an infection. Acute alcohol use, binge drinking, and chronic alcohol use can all be harmful, whether you take medication or not. Listening to your doctor or pharmacist’s advice can help you avoid the effects of an alcohol-drug interaction.
Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis has necessitated the use of second-line agents, which can result in adverse neurological reactions, making concomitant use with alcohol undesirable (99). It should also be noted that the FDA and the NIH do not list fluconazole as having an interaction with alcohol (4, 5). The oxazolidinone class of antibiotics, including linezolid and tedizolid, are typically used in the treatment of resistant Gram-positive infections (80). Two young healthy hospital workers receiving 3 days of prophylactic TMP-SMX appeared to have a disulfiram-like reaction following alcohol consumption (75). One subject had recurrent symptoms with alcohol consumption on the following day, and the other had had multiple alcoholic beverages the previous day without incident.
- As these compounds are chemically related, the occurrence of a disulfiram-like reaction with TMP-SMX seems mechanistically plausible.
- Moderate alcohol consumption doesn’t usually reduce antibiotic effectiveness or cause serious interactions (although, there are a few exceptions).
- A 2020 review shows a lack of solid evidence behind how common this is, but caution is still warranted.
- Sometimes that’s because studies have shown that wasn’t the case.
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Adverse reaction/toxicity data are limited to possible disulfiram-like reactions in two individuals, but the reported reaction cannot be clearly attributed to the combination of TMP-SMX and alcohol. While acute intake of alcohol is unlikely to impact therapeutic levels of doxycycline, alcoholics may have reduced doxycycline half-lives leading to subtherapeutic concentrations if dosed once daily. The effect of the PK of the amoxicillin-alcohol interaction was studied in eight healthy volunteers receiving, on three separate occasions, amoxicillin (500 mg) with water or alcohol. The absorption of amoxicillin, when combined with alcohol, was delayed compared to its absorption with administration with water (11). This was demonstrated by an increased lag time, time to maximal concentration (Tmax), and half-life. Delay in absorption was postulated to be due to alcohol’s inhibition of gastric emptying and the lower solubility of amoxicillin in alcohol than in water.
Talk to your doctor or pharmacist if you’re unsure about the details of your medications. But that likely depends on your age, overall health, and the type of drug you’re taking. Combining these antibiotics and alcohol can cause a potentially dangerous reaction. Doctors recommend avoiding alcohol while taking a number of drugs. Responsible drinking should not impede the effectiveness of cephalexin but may exacerbate side effects like dizziness, drowsiness, and nausea. Responsible drinking will most likely not impede the effectiveness of azithromycin but may exacerbate side effects like nausea, vomiting, headaches, and diarrhea.
Combining Antibiotics and Alcohol: Is It Safe?
You should refer to the prescribing information for levofloxacin for a complete list helpstay reviews of interactions. The combination will cause effects like disorientation, nervousness, disturbances in attention, memory loss, and confusion. A type of antibiotic called doxycycline may be less effective in people with a history of heavy drinking. One problem is there’s little scientific evidence regarding alcohol use with antibiotics.
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Also possible with absorption of vaginal cream into the bloodstream (systemic).
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All randomized controlled trials and results from smaller, nonrandomized, open-label studies were included, provided that the studies had adequate methodology as judged by the authors. For drugs with limited information, case reports/series were included. Online drug information centers for Walgreen’s, Rite Aid, and CVS pharmacies were queried for each antimicrobial for concurrent alcohol use warnings (Table 1). Regarding the interactions between alcohol and levofloxacin, there do not appear to be any clear studies that have demonstrated an interaction between the two. However, doctors strongly recommended that patients avoid combining levofloxacin with alcohol. This is because the interaction between the two is a rather unpredictable and there is always a possibility that the alcohol levels in the blood and can alter the way levofloxacin is absorbed.
