Simultaneous reception of antidepressants and alcohol is recognized as one of the most dangerous combinations, increasing the risk of increasing depression, the occurrence of psychosis, and the lethal outcome many times. Indications for the use of tricyclic antidepressant amitriptyline are depression, emotional disorders, behavioral disorders, schizophrenic psychosis, painful neurogenic syndrome, neurotic, organic brain damage.
Amitriptyline has an antidepressant, sedative effect by reducing the sensitivity of serotonin, beta-adrenergic receptors. Has a retarding effect on processes in the brain.
The drug calms pain, promotes tissue scarring in the stomach ulcer, reduces appetite. In the treatment of depression, the effect of the drug does not appear immediately. It takes an average of 3 weeks to show results of treatment. Accordingly, the question arises: is it possible to take Amitriptyline with alcohol?
Properties
Absorbed tablets, dragees in the stomach, intestines. In the blood, the drug accumulates in the maximum concentration after 3-8 hours. The half-life is between 10 and 26 hours, the metabolites of Amitriptyline are excreted within 18 to 44 hours.
Contraindications
Amitriptyline is contraindicated in the following conditions:
- hypertension;
- myocardial infarction;
- acute hepatic, renal failure;
- intestinal obstruction;
- stomach ulcer.
With caution Amitriptyline is prescribed for epilepsy, high intraocular pressure, heart disease, arrhythmia.
Side effects are noted mainly from the heart, nervous, vascular system, stomach.
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When taking medication, the following are observed:
- dizziness, drowsiness, tremor;
- confusion;
- tinnitus;
- nightmares;
- heart palpitations;
- fainting;
- stomach pain, nausea, decreased appetite.
In case of an overdose of Amitriptyline, life-threatening conditions develop, convulsions, hallucinations, cardiac arrhythmias, possible psychosis, coma.
In the video description of the drug Amitriptyline:
Interaction with alcohol
Amitriptyline enhances the effect of alcohol. Compatibility of these drugs causes a decrease in blood pressure, has a retarding effect on the respiratory center, depresses the central nervous system.
Ethyl alcohol enhances and side effects of Amitriptyline. With simultaneous use, the risk of visual disturbance, the appearance of hallucinations, disorientation in the surrounding space is increased.
Ethanol adversely affects the urinary system, causes considerable difficulties with urination, provokes constipation, exerting a depressing effect on intestinal motility.
Ethanol and medicine negatively affect the liver, exhaust the possibilities of liver enzymes, create conditions for the accumulation of metabolic products. Both in ethanol and in Amitriptyline metabolites have a high activity.
So, acetaldehyde is a metabolite of alcohol, several times more toxic than ethanol itself. High and the activity of the metabolite Amitriptyline - a compound of nortriptyline. In addition, nortriptyline is excreted longer( up to 3 days).
The use of alcohol-containing drinks lengthens the half-life of the drug and its metabolites, which creates the danger of overdose, and the appearance of all concomitant overdose symptoms in a more vivid manifestation.
Possible consequences
Alcohol in combination with Amitriptyline:
- intensifies depression, causes panic attack, psychosis;
- disrupts liver function, leads to cirrhosis;
- hampers the excretion of urine, promotes renal failure;
- causes a sharp drop in blood pressure, a drop in body temperature, to whom;
- is able to cause a halt in breathing, death.
Receiving 5 g of amitriptyline causes poisoning, and the lethal dose of the drug in the absence of alcohol in the blood is 12 g. Ethyl alcohol increases the side effects of the antidepressant, which unpredictably reduces the lethal dose of the drug.
The degree of enhancement of the side effects of the drug depends on the condition of the patient's liver, the characteristics of its metabolism, the ability to utilize alcohol, antidepressant and their metabolites.
A person simply by ignorance can exceed the lethal dose, if he combines the medicine even in the prescribed therapeutic dosage with the use of alcoholic beverages.
Rules for the admission of
Amitriptyline and its metabolites remain in the blood for a long time. It may take several days to completely remove the medicine from the body. Drinking alcohol after the last use of an antidepressant can be no earlier than 3 days later.
But the tradition of wine drinking, unfortunately, is ineradicable."For the company" they drink even during treatment with antidepressants. Such fans of extreme need to remember the danger of drug overdose as a result of the increasing influence of alcohol, take alcoholic beverages in the minimum dose.
You can resume the course of treatment after drinking alcohol no earlier than in 24 hours. The most dangerous consequence of taking alcohol and Amitriptyline can be a heavy coma.
And not always doctors can save the victim. A way out of a coma is accompanied by a deterioration of vision, a violation of the heart activity, a prolonged depression, which is very difficult to treat.
Conclusions
Amitriptyline can not be combined with alcohol. Taking even small doses of alcohol-containing beverages can cause severe depression, cross out the result of several weeks of treatment from depression, stomach ulcers, schizophrenic psychosis.
According to the doctors' reviews, alcohol is contraindicated both in the treatment of Amitriptyline and in the diseases for which it is prescribed. The use of alcohol just causes diseases, from which antidepressants are prescribed. And to combine the use of a depressant, which is alcohol, with antidepressant Amitriptyline is unacceptable.