When your hangover has a hangover

The margarita you drank on Friday night kept you in bed all Saturday. On Sunday you wake up and you are still exhausted and excited. Your head hasn’t stopped hurting.

Is it possible that you are immersed in two days of hangover?

TO metabolize alcohol, the body breaks it down into acetaldehyde, a chemical compound. Hangovers can be the result of this process. For the vast majority of people, the vast majority of hangovers follow a predictable pattern: they make you feel weak and drained for 24 hours and then go away; but in some cases the symptoms may last longer.

The more alcohol we drink, the longer the hangover can last. However, some people are prone to hangovers that last more than a day, even when taken in relatively moderate amounts, he noted. Emmer Robertshangover researcher in the Stanford University Department of Psychiatry.

Scientists don’t know exactly why this happens, but they are working to find out. “In general, there hasn’t been a lot of hangover research,” Roberts said. Here’s what the experts know:

Who suffers from them?

After a night of heavy drinking, those who tend to feel the effects for many days paradoxically fall into two groups: people who drink a lot and quite often, and people who drink very rarely.

If you drink large amounts of alcohol on a regular basis, you may be familiar with the torment your body goes through trying to process it all. This is especially true if you consume in excess, which, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, would require at least four servings at a time if you are a woman and five if you are a man. But in some cases, what we think of as a hangover could be the start of a serious alcohol withdrawal syndrome, he said. Lara Rayprofessor of clinical psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles, who conducts research on alcoholism.

Hangover symptoms and alcohol withdrawal symptoms can overlap, he says, and it’s important to know the difference. Anthony March, addiction specialist at DuPage Central Hospital of Northwestern Medicine. If you have persistent vomiting and are unable to hold down fluids, you have frequent diarrhea, confusion, and even mild hallucinations, or if your skin turns blue, you may have a severe form withdrawal syndrome and you should go to the emergency room as soon as possible.

Conversely, if you don’t drink often but do drink one night, one hypothesis for why you might have a longer hangover is that you might your liver is not used to producing acetaldehydeRay commented. This means hangover symptoms can persist, he explained.

Age can also be a factor: According to Ray, an older person’s liver may take longer to metabolize alcohol. In addition, he mentioned that some medications, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) (including Zoloft), can interact with alcohol and possibly cause longer hangover symptoms.

As for those lucky enough to get a two-day hangover even after moderate drinking, researchers have a few theories. Roberts says there are people who may be genetically predisposed to more severe hangovers; They may have an abnormally strong reaction to the way alcohol raises blood sugar levels, which can lead to more severe and persistent headaches. Or perhaps the immune system is having trouble protecting itself from the damage caused by alcohol, which can exacerbate and prolong the overall feeling of illness.

There are other biological factors that may contribute to this. “Some people are very sensitive to beer because of the yeast.; some others are sensitive to other wines due to sulfites, March said. “It’s something very individual and hard to predict.”

And since “hangovers” are a general disorder (researchers have identified as many as 47 symptoms), what looks like an alcohol-induced condition may be an entirely different problem.

People may think they are having a long hangover, when in fact their symptoms are due to stress or underlying illnessRoberts stated.

How to Avoid Discomfort

The most obvious recommendation Drink in moderationbecause the more you overdo it, the more likely it is that the hangover will get worse and last longer. Also, the conventional wisdom on how to avoid a hangover—drinking a glass of water between alcoholic drinks, eating beforehand—may help you avoid a hangover in the first place.

The type of drink you drink also matters: tequila, whiskey and dark spirits contain compounds called congeners that are more likely to give us longer hangovers due to how they are metabolized, Roberts said.

If you consistently experience multi-day hangovers due to excessive drinking, this could be a sign of drinking problems. Ray recommends reading Rethinking Drinkingguidance from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

“I think we need to take a step back and say, ‘If I pass out two, three or four times a month, I’m really hurting my system.’ I’m doing myself a disservice no matter how I feel with a hangover,” said March.

Researchers are still figuring out what makes us suffer days of hangover ordeal and why some people are more susceptible.

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