To be safe, a patient should consult both a doctor and a pharmacist for information about a prescription or combination of prescriptions. One would think that a person taking only one prescription would be out of the woods as far as drug interaction danger goes. However, other drugs aren't the only potential inhibitors of medication. This particular drug can interact with vitamins and minerals which decrease absorption of tetracycline, an antibiotic. This leads to fewer positive results from the tetracycline, often stunting the healing process and rendering the antibiotic properties of the drug useless.
Foods can do the same things.
Olestra, for example, contains Vitamin K, which affects the drug Coumadin. Herbal teas and sweet clove and beans, green vegetables, foods with vitamin K and some legumes can also alter Coumadin's effects on the body. In the medical field, there are four ''codes'' used to evaluate potential drug interactions. Code one has high clinical significance, great potential for harm to the patient, predictable or frequent interaction and is well documented. Codes two and three decrease in significance, harm and frequency, and code four signifies a drug that is not clinically significant, documented or thought to have any effect or interaction potential.