Antibiotics and booze

Factual Questions
1

I’m just getting over a flu/cold type illness that wiped out me and especially my vocal cords (a bug of somesort) and the physician’s asst. (whom I waited a week and a half to see, by the way) put me on an antibiotic (Zithromax [Azithromycin]} and I asked about being able to drink Christmas and New Year’s toasts and similar alcohol related activities (remembering that I had been told by nurses and doctors in the past that one shouldn’t drink and use antibiotics because it negates the effects of the medicine). She said that she had never heard that and further it should have no effect.

I am willing to take her advice, but I hate to waste the money on the medicine if she does not know what she is talking about. Does she?

TV

2

I asked a pharmacist the same question earlier this year and got the same reply.

Damn, you know how many times I passed on some hot-buttered brandy and water to ease a sinus infection?

3

Seeing as how I just washed down an antibiotic with a beer (sinus infection), I’m not terribly concerned. I trust the people with the letters after their name.

4

Don’t I know it!

5

Well, since most cold/flu illnesses are viral in nature, there’s a chance that the antibiotic isn’t doing any good anyway. But most antibiotics work in the presence of small amounts of alcohol. But a few can make you very sick when taken with alcohol, such as metronidazole. One gets an antabuse-type reaction.

QtM, MD