Can you drink alcohol while taking Alitretinoin?
Last updated September 7, 2026.
**Light or moderate drinking is generally acceptable with alitretinoin, but keeping your intake low is smart because the oral form raises blood fats and liver enzymes that alcohol also affects.** Alitretinoin is not acitretin, the retinoid that alcohol converts into a longer-lasting compound, so the strict no-alcohol rule you may have read about for that drug does not apply here. What does apply is overlap: oral alitretinoin can push up triglycerides, cholesterol, and liver enzymes, and steady drinking does the same. Alitretinoin gel applied to the skin is barely absorbed, so alcohol is much less of a factor with that form. Staying within the US limit of up to one drink a day if you are a woman and two if you are a man, with several alcohol-free days each week, also keeps your monitoring blood tests easier to interpret. If you take the oral capsules and can become pregnant, keep contraception and pregnancy testing exactly on schedule, since drinking makes people more likely to skip steps.
What to do
- Know which form you take: Oral capsules for severe hand eczema carry the blood fat and liver concerns, while the skin gel used on Kaposi sarcoma lesions has almost no systemic effect.
- Keep it light: Stay at or below one drink a day for women and two for men, and build in alcohol-free days rather than saving drinks for the weekend.
- Do not confuse it with acitretin: Acitretin requires avoiding alcohol during treatment and for two months after, because alcohol converts it into a retinoid that lingers for years; alitretinoin does not behave that way.
- Protect your lab results: Keep your scheduled lipid and liver blood tests, and skip alcohol for two or three days beforehand so the numbers reflect the medication, not last night.
- Guard the pregnancy rules: Oral alitretinoin causes severe birth defects, so contraception and pregnancy testing must stay on schedule no matter what your social plans are.
- Call your clinician if: You get a severe headache with vision changes, yellowing of the eyes or skin, dark urine, or bad upper stomach pain, and stop drinking until you are seen.
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