Can You Drink Milk With Amoxicillin?

Answer

Milk, as well as other dairy products, are perfectly safe to consume with amoxicillin. There are no interactions to be concerned about.

This is not the case, however, with all antibiotics as there are several that you should not combine with milk/dairy.

Antibiotics - Dairy Interaction

As mentioned, while amoxicillin is safe with milk and other dairy products, there are antibiotics that you need to avoid the combination with. This includes:

• Doxycycline
• Tetracycline
• Levofloxacin
• Ciprofloxacin
• Minocycline

The interaction between these antibiotics and milk is due to the fact that the calcium in dairy products can bind to the antibiotic, reducing absorption, which could make the antibiotic less effective.

In fact, studies show that combining tetracycline antibiotics with calcium-containing products can reduce the absorption of the antibiotic by more than 50%.

If you are taking an antibiotic that interacts with dairy, you should separate their administration by at least a few hours. Recommendations vary on exactly how long to separate them, but generally, it is reported that you should not take dairy products at least 2 hours before, or 4 hours after, your antibiotics.

Final Words

So, while you can feel safe combining amoxicillin with milk, just be aware this is not a blanket recommendation for all antibiotics.

Additional Information

If you are looking for additional information on amoxicillin, you can find more information on our drug detail pages:

• Amoxicillin