believe it or not there actually are some foods that can counteract with medicines today. one of the things that i notice even with allegra is the fact that fruit juices can actually not make the drug work as well -- and it’s not just grapefruit juice. things like orange juice and apple juice just the level of acidity actually doesn’t make the drug work as well; so therefore i’ve recommended patients to not take it with juice or not have juice within an hour of taking the medication. also another popular thing that people do is that they tend to take things like maalox or milk of magnesia if they have an upset stomach and take their pills you know with it or within 20 minutes of it. always good to space it with medicines because these products can actually bind and make it like a cement brick and therefore the pill can’t do its job as well because it’s stuck in this little nasty situation. so i always tell people space antacids and things like that by at least two hours. therefore it’s out of your system and the medication can dissolve and do its job. but that‘s a really common question that we get with pharmacists. if you have any questions about specific food products always feel free to ask us. we can look it up if we’re not sure but there is some really good data out there that shows us what medications and what foods might interact. if it says “do not drink alcohol” which some people may consider a food that is something that i tell people to not do either. alcohol is just a product that believe it or not just makes side effects worse. it will make you more tired especially with allergy medications. it could cause your stomach to become more upset. a lot of people don’t realize all the things that it could do for you; so basically while you’re on allergy medications or really for that matter any medication you should really limit your alcohol use or don’t drink at all.
are there any foods that might counteract my allergy medications?