Can I Take Zithromax Before my Surgery on Monday?

Thank you for your question. If in the unfortunate circumstance that you get sick before your surgery, you may have postpone your surgery until you are better again. If you are feeling sick, I would discuss with your surgeon who may help you decide depending on your individual symptoms.

Thank you for your question. Contact your doctor's office and inform him/her and the anesthesiologist. There is a good chance that you won't have a choice. If you are sick, then surgery may be canceled and rescheduled to a time that you are not sick. It is not worth the risk of getting much sicker for an elective surgery.

Thoguh you have started antibiotic therapy prior to surgery, you will NOT have completed treatment, and will likely still have many more strep bacteria still present, even if you remain asymptomatic. Realize that antibiotics work by first killing the sensitive strains of strep that infect your throat, and hopefully killing at least some of the more resistant strains that are present in any billions-of-bacteria colonies that are multiplying and mutating. Soon, only the resistant strains remain, but by then, in most cases of healthy individuals, your own immune defenses are "cranked-up" and able to kill the remaining nasty bugs.

If you don't give your body time to do its work, along with completing your antibiotic prescription as directed, you are at increased risk for laryngospasm (major anesthesia concern) and a higher risk of infection in your operative site. Throat and airway infections are best completely healed before considering elective surgery. Sure these are "theoretically-increased" risks, but should you be the rare exception that experiences one of them, you are NOT "theoretically" dead; it's the real deal.

I know it's a huge hassle to rearrange time off work, vacation, help with recovery, etc. We all get that. But even a small risk of something terrible happening is too big a risk to take! Talk to your doctor. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.