Mayo Clinic Health Manager
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If your symptoms do not improve within a few days, or if they become worse, check with your doctor.
For patients with diabetes:
- This medicine may cause false test results with some urine sugar tests. Check with your doctor before changing your diet or the dosage of your diabetes medicine.
For patients with phenylketonuria (PKU):
- Cefprozil oral suspension (Cefzil) contains phenylalanine. Check with your doctor before taking this medicine.
In some patients, cephalosporins may cause diarrhea:
- Severe diarrhea may be a sign of a serious side effect. Do not take any diarrhea medicine without first checking with your doctor. Diarrhea medicines may make your diarrhea worse or make it last longer.
- For mild diarrhea, medicine containing kaolin or attapulgite (e.g., Kaopectate®, Diasorb®) may be taken. However, other kinds of diarrhea medicine should not be taken. They may make your diarrhea worse or make it last longer.
- If you have any questions about this or if mild diarrhea continues or gets worse, check with your health care professional
For patients receiving cefamandole, cefoperazone, or cefotetan by injection:
- Drinking alcoholic beverages or taking other alcohol-containing preparations (for example, elixirs, cough syrups, tonics, or injections of alcohol) while receiving these medicines may cause problems. The problems may occur if you consume alcohol even several days after you stop taking the cephalosporin. Drinking alcoholic beverages may result in increased side effects such as abdominal or stomach cramps, nausea, vomiting, headache, fainting, fast or irregular heartbeat, difficult breathing, sweating, or redness of the face or skin. These effects usually start within 15 to 30 minutes after you drink alcohol and may not go away for up to several hours. Therefore, you should not drink alcoholic beverages or take other alcohol-containing preparations while you are receiving these medicines and for several days after stopping them.