Bad news...

[RobWalker]

We will see what happens next time I sneak a pint...as it stands the tablets are working wonders, so it would be wrong to interfere...but certainly, it'll either do nothing or bugger it up, so its best to edge in slowly!

 

[ScottM]

Casey76 touched on the subject but to add my tuppenth :lol: .
Alcohol rarely interacts with medications, it does however interfere with the metabolism of the drugs, ie, the way they are broken down in the body, this is usually via an affect on the liver.
It can thus increase metabolism (break down) or decrease metabolism (break down). In short term meds this may not be a problem....however...if you take meds long term the effects can be cumulative meaning the amount of drug in your system increases day by day until side effects are noticed...this can be very dangerous. It's also worth noting that whilst alcohol may not interfere with the initial medication in question it may interfere with it's break down products which can be equally as dangerous, sometimes more so.
Speaking as someone who worked within oncology for 12 years I have to say that the advice of the doctor whilst appreciably sensible for short term meds, was totally inappropriate from an oncology point of view, or the view of long term medication.

It was only a weeks course of antibiotics for an infection due to an adverse reaction to chemo tablets that she was taking :)

Both drugs said not to consume alchohol and my Mum being my Mum wanted to follow that to the letter until my Dad asked the question for her only to be told it's fine in moderation, it's more a warning against drinking heavily.

I honestly don't believe that 2 pints of 5% beer will make any odds to the breakdown of meds over a 24 hour period. A bad nights sleep would have more effect than that IMO.

The instructions on medication are never going to outline what the actual safe limit is, so to be safe rather than sorry the limit is set at nil. This is common practice in most instructions nowadays, as people are idiots. It would be funny if the instructions said "no more than 3 pints per night" though..... although I suspect it would be listed in units rather than pints

 

[Bailey]

Surely adverse side effects and interactions are listed with the information sheet. I think we can all see that there are some but very few drugs that have any really bad interactional issues with most medicines. Very strong anti-biotics ( the sort they give you for certain S.T.D's) have less efficacy if you go on the sauce and alot of the more serious tranquilizers and mental illness meds have some real life threatening/ending results if used with some stimulants or depressives like alcohol. Have a look at MAOI's and SSRIs