Hangover Help?

Over the weekend a good friend got a little drunk. Ok, a lot drunk and prayed to the porcelain god for a few hours. Well said friend has not had much experience of intense hangovers and was a bit lost. Luckily, I have some tried and true methods that I shared with her. She went from feeling like death to feeling sub-human within a few hours and was about 85% human by the evening. She insisted I need to share my hangover curing knowledge with the world, so here goes.

WineLush's Hangover Tips

1. Take and follow as many of these suggestions as you can handle.
2. Remember that your blood sugar is low. Despite that while you’re drinking the alcohol is treated like sugar, post drinking your body’s blood sugar has plummeted. Solution-consume sugar. Soda, OJ, Gatorade, whatever you can get down.
3. Drink water. Your body is also dehydrated, which is why your head hurts. (your brain has shrunk, really like a dried out sponge)
4. Grease + protein + bread works best to absorb the alcohol in your body. Period. If you can’t handle a greasy burger and fries, get as close as you can. Grilled cheese sandwich even.
5. If you can’t eat grease, eat something. Chicken noodle soup, banana, something. Eat whatever you can, as much as you can get down.
6. Hair of the Dog- it only works if you’re still drunk. If you threw up, don’t even consider it. If your last drink was 5 hours ago…well, it might help. I’ve witnessed both.
7. Over the counter cures-well, nothing cures, but my favorite is Alka Seltzer Wake Up Call (formerly Morning Relief). Its fizzy so it helps your tummy and it has generic Tylenol to help your head and caffeine to help wake you up. Another friend likes Excedrin, which is basically caffeine and aspirin. I personally prefer the Alka Selzer with some sprite, versus water. I typically make about 3 oz and go for the strong flavor but small amount vs diluted flavor but more. With the sprite it sortof tastes like sub-par orange soda.
8. If you’re really sick and at a restaurant, bitters and soda will help, but its not for the light stomach-ed. Its nasty but will help you burp and get things right.
9. If your head really hurts, I recommend a Bed Buddy. They are like big tube socks filled with rice, Walgreens sells them for $12. The pressure feels nice on your head and it can be warmed up. Usually helps my headaches by leaps and bounds.

An average hangover experience for me: Go to bed about 3am, wake up at 6/7am to go potty. Take an Aleve with a big glass of water, to back to bed. Depending on level of headache, when I wake up again I’ll warm up a bed buddy. (sold at Walgreens) Put the bed buddy on the top of my head, hairline-ish area, and go back to sleep/or lay around with it on my head. Drink water and get something greasy. Even if I don’t feel like it at the time, typically I don’t hit “bottom” until about 8-10 hours after my last drink, so I need food before then otherwise I’ll feel really bad later. So, I’ll eat maybe a Jack in the Box sourdough jack meal with a Coke or maybe a McD’s double cheeseburger meal with a coke. If I’ve thrown up I’ll take it easy and just eat chicken noodle soup-this depends on level of hangover as well. Keep consuming bits of protein and soda throughout the day and you’ll be a champ by the nighttime. J