How to prevent a hang-over after heavy drinking

Good advice by Dr Harold

The hang over symptoms after a heavy binge the night before are: – headache, dry tongue and mouth, nausea and vomiting, running to the toilet and dizziness, among others.

Every sip of alcohol you consume is absorbed immediately into the blood stream through the stomach lining, and the rest through the small gut. Your body cells being permeable, alcohol will diffuse into your tissues. Most people believe that alcohol makes you sleep well. Just the opposite and you tend to get up many times in the night and may not be able to sleep further, at all. Drinking more than two drinks a day is problematic. Five or more drinks a day for men and four for women is considered binge drinking. In the body the alcohol turns into acetaldehyde and this is a poison and is carcinogenic.

U.S.Food and Drug Administration has not approved any treatments for a hangover, but home remedies do help to recover sooner.

Drink plenty of cool water with a few drops of apple cider vinegar after a heavy binge. Keep a bottle of water beside your bed and drink as you wake up in the night, which is common after heavy drinking. Your mouth will be dry and drinking cool water gives much relief. Keep some sliced lemon beside your bed. Keep sucking, chewing and swallowing the whole slice with the skin. You’ll feel much fresh in your mouth and feel good generally.

If you are not lazy enough and go to the fridge, eat a few tablespoons of yogurt. It freshenes your mouth and feels good immediately.

Chew and swallow at least five vitamin C tablets before going to bed. A meal with high levels of protein and fat is recommended before or during drinking. That slows the absorption of alcohol from the gut, giving time for the liver to process and detoxify. Food has to be in your stomach before you drink or during to slow down  the absorption of alcohol. Eating a pizza or a steak before binging seems to lessen the hang over.

Drinking darker alcohols including red wine, bourbon and whisky contains congeners produced during fermentation process and are very toxic to your body. These give the
hangover headache. Red wine also contains tannins, compounds that can trigger a headache.

Studies in Britain showed that in hang over pills containing yeast and artichoke extracts had no effect, at all. They found that prickly pear cactus may reduce the nausea and dry mouth, and not the headache.

It is a good idea to take two aspirins with water before going to bed, and in the morning after, for the headache.

Drink non-alcoholic beverages, fruit juices to restore the electrolyte balance after many drinks.

Avoid drinking coffee the following morning. Caffeinated drinks can boost your heart rate and worsen the headache.

Alcohol poisoning

This is a life threatening emergency. The symptoms are confusion, stupor, vomiting, seizures, slow irregular breathing, and cold body. You need immediate hospitalization to hydrate through intravenous drips.

If you do not pass sufficient urine in the morning after, that would be a sign of dehydration. Immediately, drink a few glasses of cool water with lemon slices.
If a man and women drink the same amount, the woman is more likely to feel the effects. That may be because the muscles absorb most of the alcohol and there is
higher percentage of water in man. On the contrary, a woman has more fat and tends to retain.

So, enjoy New Year’s Eve with friends, keeping in mind my advice. Happy and Healthy New Year, to all my readers.