Cephalosporin antibiotics should be used only after a week’s interval after drinking alcohol, thus ensuring that life-threatening disulfiram-like reactions are avoided.
The use of cephalosporin after drinking alcohol usually results in a disulfiram-like reaction within 5 minutes to 1 hour, and the severity is directly proportional to the concentration of alcohol and drugs in the body, which manifests itself as facial flushing, excessive sweating, dizziness, rapid heartbeat, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness, and in severe cases, life-threatening manifestations such as dyspnea, drop in blood pressure, and loss of consciousness.
Therefore, it is recommended to prohibit drinking alcohol and eating alcohol-containing food and drugs for 3 days before using Cephalosporin, during the period of taking it, and for 1 week after stopping it, to ensure that alcohol is completely metabolized from the body and to prevent the occurrence of disulfiram-like reaction.