[Question #12214] Weigh loss drugs and antibiotics
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9 months ago
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Good morning,
I have 2 questions. Does the weight loss drug wegovy or any GP-1 diminish the effectiveness of antibiotics. I took two 500 mg azithromycin pills for a chlamydia infection at same time I did my weight loss shot. Will that affect my STI treatment?
Also, after taking antibiotics when are you pretty much non contagious?
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
9 months ago
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Welcome to the forum. Thanks for your confidence in our services.
Very few drugs interfere with the effectiveness of any antibiotic, including azithromycin. The new weight loss drugs (semaglutide/Wegovy, tirzepatide/Zepbound, etc) do not interfere with azithromycin. (You can always check drug interactions yourself. Google "drug interactions" to identify many websites where you can enter two or more drugs to see whether they interfere with one another. Use generic names like semaglutide, not brand names like Wegovy or Ozempic.)
You were non-contagious within 24 hours -- maybe as soon as 12 hours -- after taking azithromycin. Experts usually advise waiting a week before having sex in order to avoid infecting a new partner, just to provide a large margin of error.
FYI, azithromycin is no longer recommended as the best drug to treat chlamydia; doxycycline for 7 days is preferred. However, it depends in part on the infected anatomic site. If you chlamydia is urethral (i.e. your penis) azithromycin is fine. But doxycycline is advised for infection of the cervix (i.e. in all women) or rectum, or for rare throat infections.
I hope this information is helpful. Let me know if anything isn't clear.
HHH, MD
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H. Hunter Handsfield, MD
9 months ago
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Oops -- looking for previous questions on the forum I see you've been here before. Thank you for your confidence in our forum. However, I now understand you're female, and your first questions on the forum two years ago had exactly the same questions about chlamydia treatment, except for the weight loss drugs. Dr. Hook and I advised you that doxycycline is preferred for chlamydia, and we also discussed how soon chlamydia can no longer be transmitted; see questions no. 9070 and 9085.
As discussed at that time, in women, azithromycin works only about 85-90% of the time, i.e. there's a 10-15% chance you won't be cured. You should contact the doctor or clinic where you were treated about two options: 1) Doxycycline treatment; or 2) having another chlamydia test 3 weeks after treatment to confirm you were cured. If you have the test of cure, you'll need to have no sex until that test result known to be negative, i.e. 3-4 weeks from now.
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