Overdoing holiday cheer can lead to regrets later

Dr. Dale Carrison refers to the holiday season in the emergency room as the silly season.

“It starts around Thanksgiving and goes to the new year,” he says. “You definitely see more emotional distress this season, which can lead to more drinking.”

As the chairman of emergency room services and chief of staff at University Medical Center, he has seen a fair share of people who have come in after having too much to drink.

“We see it all the time in general from tourists,” Carrison says. “We have patients who come to Las Vegas and have never experienced the food and drinks like they have in this city. You ask them how much they drink back home and they say never, yet here they are drinking.”

To help deal with the effects of drinking, there are things people should be aware of.

“You’ve got to metabolize the alcohol,” he says. “People metabolize it differently.”

Carrison says alcohol metabolizes at 20 to 25 micrograms per hour.

“So theoretically, if your blood is at a 200, it would take about eight hours,” he says. “It’s common to see people at 150 or in the 200s.”

What people eat before they start drinking can make a difference, too, Carrison says.

“Having three shots on an empty stomach versus having three shots on a full stomach makes a world of difference,” he notes. “If you have a full stomach, the alcohol will absorb much slower. But the thing is, it still will be absorbed.”

But even with forethought, people can still overdo and have to deal with hangovers.

Damon McCune, a registered dietitian and a coordinator at the UNLV Nutrition Center, says hangovers result from electrolyte depletion in the body.

“Alcohol is a diuretic and acts on the body by inhibiting an anti-diuretic hormone, which is why individuals will experience an increase in urination during periods of alcohol consumption,” he says. “This also includes the loss of electrolytes in the process and this results in the common symptoms associated with a hangover.”

Carrison says he has heard of a variety of so-called cures to stop hangovers.

“I knew someone who would drink milk and take two aspirin,” he says.

Carrison says sometimes, if people believe their methods have an effect on their hangover, it could be good for them mentally.

“It’s the placebo effect,” Carrison says.

Some people believe in drinking coffee or eating greasy food.

“Mixing coffee and alcohol sometimes can be a bad combo,” Carrison says. “The thing about fatty foods is it coats the stomach (and) slows the absorption. But the alcohol still has to absorb sometime.”

McCune says there really isn’t a cure. But, he added, people may be able to significantly reduce the symptoms by properly hydrating during or immediately after drinking alcohol.

In the past, Carrison says, patients were given IVs full of vitamins, dubbed “banana bags.” They didn’t really help much, he said, other than to replenish some vitamins and electrolytes lost from drinking.

Some products on the market promise hangover relief. For example there’s Youth Infusion, which Budge Collinson, a food science expert, created to be a supplement for anyone from athletes to aging communities.

After sampling the product, he realized this was a benefit hangover sufferers .

“I had friends who were using one or two packages after they went out partying and woke up the next day feeling great,” he says.

Collinson says people can mix Youth Infusion into water after a night of drinking to help replenish electrolytes and help with dehydration.

He is working to get the product into more stores such as Whole Foods.

Hangovers aren’t the most serious thing people need to worry about when drinking. Sometimes, overconsumption can result in alcohol poisoning.

“We usually start to worry when it’s above a 300 (micrograms of alcohol),” Carrison says. “I have seen people who are at a 600 or 700. That is not good.”

When the emergency room gets patients at this point, blood is often drawn to examine and monitor electrolyte and sodium intake.

“We’ve had people so bad we have had to put a breathing tube in to help them breathe,” Carrison says.

Generally speaking, people should seek medical help if they have been drinking and cannot stop vomiting.

But McCune recommends drinking in moderation to avoid such danger.

“Partying and getting drunk are two different things,” Carrison adds. “The biggest thing is, just like everything else, drinking should be done in moderation. You don’t have to get drunk to have a good time.”

Contact reporter Michael Lyle at mlyle@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-5201. Follow @mjlyle on Twitter.