bitter taste after talking a medicine

Hello dear experts, help me please. I have H pylori. Doctor prescribed: clarithromycin 500 mg (1 tablet twice a day), omeprazole 20 mg (1 tablet twice a day) and amoxicillin 500 mg (2 tablets twice a day). After just talking first and second doses I have bitter taste in my mouth. In addition, I feel weak and little scared. I am thinking, may be it is side effect or the medicine just has a bitter taste. I am also scared, may be my liver can not handle these medicines as a result it gives this bitter taste. Please, explain why do I have this bitter taste.
Thank you very much

[ggreg]

I think I can reassure you.  I have taken a lot of medicines in my lifetime, and pretty much all of them taste awful, and some are downright wretched.  Also, while it's in your tummy, acid is breaking them down, so sometimes you can burp the taste up too.  In addition, if you ever taste something bad, it tends to stick with you, probably part of a living being's genetics where people need to remember for a lifetime not to eat certain things.  Some medicines say you can take them with or without food.  If so, then I always take mine right after I eat, altho you may do better taking them before.  Try both ways and see if it helps dull the bitterness.  Then I'll brush my teeth and drink a sweet soda after my pills, clears the palate.

As for your liver holding up, believe me, they test these medicines for ages to see if people can tolerate these things, plus keep in mind you're only taking them for a few weeks, and not forever.  So, the liver can handle that sort of thing.  Anyhow, you're supposed to have a bitter taste in your mouth, strong tastes tend to linger, and the quicker you can swallow them and not let them roll around in your mouth, the less likely you'll taste them, so could be if you drank water with each one separately, your tongue won't pick up as much taste.  But even then, some medicines just plain taste really bad.  I remember one time I had pneumonia one Christmas, and it took me two years to get to where I could eat turkey dressing again, because I associated the taste with how sick I was.

If you were having a reaction to the medicine, it would not be taste that would bother you.  You would not be able to breathe or you might break out in a rash or your heart rate would go waaaaay up.  It's like having a fit of asthma or coughing.  So, I think I can safely say you are not having a reaction to the meds.  They just plain taste awful.  Just try to think of them as getting rid of a bacteria that has been making you very sick for quite sometime, stick with it to the bitter end, and take your medicines all the way through.

[ana728]

Thank you very much. It was very helpful and feels much better now.
Take a good care of yourself.

[Zhenchu]

You may want to consider that some people have different reactions to medications than others.  There's a case report of hepatitis consequent to treatment of h pylori with amoxycillin and clarithromycin.  Pubmed ID  19946449.  Another good read is "Fulminant liver failure associated with clarithromycin", PubMed ID 12503933.  

[ggreg]

Dear Zhenchu,
Fill me in, since you did not give enuff info for me to pull up the articles you refer to.  And I think the young lady who is sick would like to know, too, in case I'm wrong.  I mean, tell us if metallic taste in mouth can mean liver failure, or whatever it is you're trying to tell us!!!  Educate us, spell it out, pleeez!
GG

[ggreg]

Dear Ana,
Just to be on the safe side, do call your doc about your symptom of bitter taste (sorry I said metallic in the above post).  If the liver is going to be affected, which the other poster's article title suggests that, you'll get jaundice, which symptoms of that are yellowing eyes and dark urine.
GG

[LexiAZ]

I was on the same med regiment and yes one of the side effects is the awful bitter taste...It is metalic tasting and it really was bad.
I am sure you are over it and the H-P went away...I was on this med series the first of the year and I was so sick with that taste I had to reduce my work hours to cope.  Hope you are better and that miserable pain and symtoms (symptoms) are all gone! Best wishes! =]