Can I drink while taking medicine?

For most western medicines, don't drink alcohol before and after taking medicine, even beer, fruit wine and tonic medicinal liquor with low alcohol content can't be drunk. It can be said that alcohol and western medicine are a pair of out-and-out "enemies". If they meet in a narrow way, they will cause a lot of trouble.

Alcohol+diazepam: coma or even death

"I couldn't sleep 30 years ago, and I couldn't sleep 30 years later." According to statistics, there are tens of millions of insomniacs in China, especially many middle-aged office workers and the elderly, and they have the habit of taking sleeping pills for a long time to help them sleep. However, it is very dangerous for insomnia patients to take sedatives and sleeping pills such as diazepam and chloral hydrate after drinking! Because both alcohol and sleeping pills can produce strong brain nerve inhibition, patients are prone to coma or poisoning death. It is said that comedian Chaplin died of taking sleeping pills after drinking.

Alcohol+hypoglycemic agents: hypoglycemia shock

People with diabetes should also pay special attention. During the injection of insulin or oral hypoglycemic agents, if you drink alcohol on an empty stomach, hypoglycemia is easy to occur. It should be noted that this kind of hypoglycemia is characterized by palpitation, sweating, fatigue and weakness, and even irritability, confusion and multilingualism. It is often concealed by drunkenness and is not easy to distinguish from drunkenness, so that even if severe and persistent hypoglycemia occurs, patients often do not realize it, and eventually hypoglycemia shock occurs. If not treated in time, it may lead to irreversible damage and even death of brain tissue.

Alcohol+aspirin: gastrointestinal bleeding

In China, many patients with heart disease and arthritis need to take non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as aspirin or indomethacin for a long time. This medicine is very irritating to the stomach and can easily cause gastrointestinal bleeding. If you drink alcohol during medication, the adverse reactions caused by drugs will be "more intense" and there may be a lot of gastrointestinal bleeding. Patients with gastric and duodenal ulcers and people with coagulation disorders are particularly prone to this serious complication. It is worth mentioning that some people who are usually healthy will have serious headaches after drinking. If they take painkillers themselves, it is also easy to induce gastrointestinal bleeding.

Alcohol+antihypertensive drugs: severe hypotension

Some hypertensive patients have this experience: after drinking, if you measure your blood pressure the next morning, you will find that your blood pressure is particularly well controlled, and then your blood pressure will rebound, which is significantly higher than the usual blood pressure level. It turns out that alcohol can dilate blood vessels, thus enhancing the antihypertensive effect of drugs. Therefore, if you take antihypertensive drugs after drinking, it is easy to have a hypotensive reaction, which may even lead to sudden death in severe cases. Patients with nephritis, severe hypertension, coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction are particularly prone to such crises and accidents. Moreover, the sudden drop of blood pressure is likely to lead to excessive blood pressure fluctuation and "rebound phenomenon", which is not conducive to the smooth control of the disease.

Alcohol+anticancer drugs: accelerating cancer metastasis

Cancer patients who take anticancer drugs must also abstain from drinking, because even a small amount of alcohol can completely offset the efficacy of drugs in killing cancer cells, and it is easy to promote the metastasis and spread of cancer cells, which will eventually greatly shorten the life span of cancer patients. In addition, most chemotherapy drugs are hepatotoxic, which can cause gastrointestinal reactions such as vomiting and nausea, and alcohol plays a negative role in these adverse reactions.

Alcohol+antibiotics: severe alcoholism

If you take antibiotics and drink alcohol, it's like brewing bitter fruit. Xinhua News Agency reported such a vivid case: Before the Spring Festival, Dai in Beihai, Guangxi caught a cold and took cold medicine and "Pioneer 6" for several days. Before Chinese New Year's Eve, he was afraid that sneezing would affect everyone's mood. Then he took two "Pioneer 6" pills and drank it with a cup. Before drinking two or two glasses of white wine, he immediately felt his heart beat faster and he had difficulty breathing. His family rushed to the hospital for rescue. It turns out that "Pioneer 6" is a cephalosporin antibiotic, which can inhibit the metabolism of alcohol in the human body, lead to the accumulation of alcohol in the body, damage organs such as liver, kidney and heart, and cause toxic reactions in the body. Even if a small amount of alcohol is mixed with such drugs, it may lead to poisoning, leading to nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache and even dyspnea.

In addition, when mental patients take chlorpromazine, perphenazine and other drugs, if they still drink a lot, they will sharply aggravate their original condition or have severe cerebral ischemia, or even sudden death.

Therefore, it is true that some people say that alcohol is a catalyst for the toxicity of western medicine. For patients who are in poor health and taking medicine, it is not advisable to drink alcohol under any circumstances. Otherwise, it will be a cup of home-brewed "bitter wine".