Taking antibiotics before LOS trip

[pacman]

(deepthroat @ Jan. 25 2009,03:12) I was planning on eating at the food carts but sticking to bottled water. From what I've heard and read, many of the food carts are no worse than the restaurants. What say yea?

After a serious parasite infection I picked up in LOS many years ago, I was wary about eating off the carts for many years & I still managed to get sick. (I now know how to fix that quickly & cheaply without the need for antibiotics.)

So it comes down to good choices as to where you eat & what you order. If the food is cooked in a wok over high heat, the bugs won't survive more than a minute. However the chance of unwashed hands or unsterile plates or cutlery can still cause you problems.

That can happen in any kitchen & you really can't go & check them all. Ordering any seafood from a place that has few or no customers is just silly, the Thais are loathe to waste anything & you are just another farang to them.

Dishes sitting in pots by the side of the road are what I believe rxpharm was referring to, be a little smart deepthroat & you should be OK. Wok fried food on clean plates gives you plenty of options.

There are many fast food outlets as clean as any western country, plus the big busy kitchens run by professional food people catering for tourists are going to be safer than a dirty little back street joint.

My favourite spot that I recommend you have a look at is the Hopf Brewhaus on Beach Road, corner Soi Yamoto. Excellent Italian food, wood fired pizzas, plus Thai dishes of course. World class.

[koykaeng]

Thought this was interesting reading;

Cheers
Koykaeng

Penicillin was truly a miracle drug when it was first introduced. It worked quickly and effectively against pneumonia, meningitis and hundreds of other deadly diseases. It was also especially effective against what were then called "Venereal Diseases" (VDs) - now called Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).

The VD Clinics of the 1950s and 1960s gave the somber and serious advice that alcohol should absolutely not be used while taking penicillin. But there were no significant chemical interactions between penicillin and alcohol. The real reason that this advice was given was for moral reasons, not pharmacological reasons. The medicos of the day were worried that alcohol would reduce the inhibitions of the sufferers, and that, while under the influence, they might get a little "frisky" and pass on their infection to another person, before the penicillin had a chance to cure the sexually transmitted diseases.

That's how the mythconception that alcohol should never be taken with antibiotics arose.

Even so, it's well known that alcohol can interact quite nastily with a small number of modern drugs such as tinidazole (Fasigyn) and metronidazole (Flagyl), potentially causing nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps, headaches, fast heart rate and flushing. And alcohol can reduce the absorption of other antibiotics such as the doxycyclines and tetracyclines. But these few interactions are well known to both medical doctors and pharmacists.

Mind you, alcohol can put an extra load on your liver and immune system, can impair your judgment, liberate aggressive tendencies, reduce your energy state - and can be associated with staying up late, behaving recklessly, and not getting all the rest that your body needs to heal itself. So half a glass of an alcoholic beverage of our choice would be fine with most antibiotics.