Happy New Year! Let’s get you all feeling better.
Water
Hydrate people, hydrate. Alcohol is a diuretic, which means it makes you urinate more and lose valuable fluid and salts. Water is the easiest, most tolerable, cheapest way to hydrate. Take it slow so you don’t vomit. And not scotch and water. Just water….
Eat something
An empty stomach is an irritable one. While most sources say eat a “greasy breakfast”, I would recommend balanced breakfast with protein. Give the stomach acid something to chew on but make it easily digestible. Remember the alcohol irritated your gut so you need to go easy on it. Baby steps, but healthy baby steps
Exercise
Take a short, brisk walk. The adrenaline gets the blood pumping and can help with the headache. The cool air outside will feel good when you inhale and some endorphins will release. This may help with your headache.
Drink some Sprite/Sports Drinks
Chinese researchers back in 2013 found Sprite to be the best hangover cure and even though we don’t have many other studies to back it up, the sweet and bubbly it provides makes your head and tummy feel better.
Sport’s Drinks add the salts you lost from alcohol’s diuretic features. Though many of us don’t like the taste, those who do find it a nice way to hydrate.
Football
There’s some great games set for today and yelling at the TV, jumping in cheer, and nibbling on some salty snacks will definitely make you feel better. Go Cowboys!!
What is “hair of the dog”?
Originally it was a treatment to ward off rabies. One would, after being bit by a dog, put a piece of dog hair on the wound. A treating fire-with-fire strategy. It later was used for hangovers. Treating a hangover with a chaser of alcohol was supposed to elevate moods and lessen the withdrawal. To date there is not enough scientific support to recommend hair of the dog.
So what is a hangover?
Its a constellation of symptoms that occur post-partying…..and include headache, muscle ache, nausea, anxiety, moodiness, wanting to avoid light and loud sounds, eye redness, thirst and dizziness, though some hangovers may have many more symptoms.
They could be caused by a variety of factors:
- Dehydration – alcohol isn’t the best choice to replace lost fluids during a night of dancing, plus it causes increase in urination
- Low blood sugar – caused by lack of good nutrition over the last 12 hours and enhanced by drinking alcohol
- Poor sleep – let me guess, you didn’t get a good nice, cuddly, deep sleep for 9 hours once you came home
- Irritated stomach lining – alcohol tends to do that and ticks off the pancreas as well
- Acetaldehyde – a chemical converted from alcohol that has been postulated to make you feel nauseous and achy, either during its breakdown in the liver or after its metabolism
- Cytokine production and release – seen in inflammatory states and can make you achy
Other theories suggesting lactic acid build up, withdrawl from drinking the night before, and congeners that are compounds that vary in alcohol types (red wine vs vodka).
For next time, how do you avoid the dreaded hangover?
Want to avoid a hangover? Here’s how:
Firstly, try to avoid getting drunk. Set your limits and stick to it.
Secondly, drink plenty of water throughout the night and once you get home.
Finally, don’t drink on an empty stomach to “speed up the buzz”. Your empty gut will absorb alcohol quicker so eat a good nutritious meal prior to partying.
Avoid popping antiinflammatories or Tylenol once you get home because your stomach and liver are already irritated from the alcohol and this may make matters worse. But if any of the above “cures” don’t help, you may need to use these as a last resort.
Here’s to a great new year!! Be well!!
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Daliah Wachs, MD, FAAFP is a nationally syndicated radio personality on GCN Network, iHeart Radio and Board Certified Family Physician
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