Have I Developed Alcohol Intolerance

firecox · Newbie Joined: 30 Nov 2006 Posts: 1

Hi Not sure if anyone can Explain whats going on here. I am a 46 year old white male. I used to drink relatively heavily being in the navy. Although i hardly was ever sick or had a hangover. Over the last couple of years I have developed what I can only describe as an alcohol intolerance.
Which seems to be getting worse and has manifested itself with as little as a pint of beer.
I can drink a couple of beers and go to bed feeling quite OK. but am awoken about two to three hours later feeling sick.
I am then usually sick until there is nothing left to bring up. After each bout of vomiting I usually Hyperventilate and get cold shakes and am freezing. If i lay back down and start to doze off, I awake suddenly as if Im not breathing and gasp for breath which starts me hyperventilating again and usually causes another bout of vomitting even if my gut is empty i still try. Eventually I stop vomitting and can go back to sleep but this may be as long as 4 hours after the first vomit
This does not happen all the time but is becoming more frequent. sometimes I can drink 4 or 5 beers and nothing happens and sometimes 1 or 2 beers will set it in motion. the following day i generally feel weak and tired and cant eat till that evening.

Short of giving up drinking altogether Im at my wits end. Its quite embarassing when you have a meal and a couple of glasses of wine at a friends house and spend the night with your head down their toilet.

Please help anyone

monbon · Newbie Joined: 08 Feb 2007 Posts: 2

I am 23 years old and for the past 2 years I have experienced a severe reaction to alcohol. It is hard to predict when I will be sick becuase sometimes I will have 5 drinks and be ok and other times only 2 drinks will make me throw up. My mother has taken me to hospital on two occasions because I will throw up from 6am to 6pm the day after I drink. I become so severly dehydrated that I feel sick for about 5 days. The doctors didnt have any sympathy for me at the hospital as they probably thought I had just been out binge drinking with my friends. They just tested my blood sugar levels and told me to try and keep some water down. I never throw up whilst I'm drinking but usually wake up fairly early to vomit and my whole body shakes throughout the day.

After doing some of my own research I am going to consult a naturopath to give me an adrenal test to assess how my adrenal glands are functioning and to also check my liver out. Drinking alcohol has a profound effect on blood sugar levels and depletes your body of important minerals and electrolytes so maybe this test would be helpful for all those people out there who have the same problem. I am just at the stage now where I can never get drunk ever again and having a reason would give me some peace of mind. Until then I'll remain designated driver every saturday night!!

rogerh · Newbie Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 2

lizards · Newbie Joined: 14 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

I have no solution but the same problem. I could drink fine for years, it would take about 5 drinks to make me sick, but that did not happen often. Then after less than half a beer, glass of wine or mix drink, in a few hours I become very ill. I just became lactose intolerant (at age 27 btw I am white female) and maybe my body is not producing the enzymes to digest alcase (Sp) the sugar in alcohol (lactose intolerance comes from the body not producing enzymes to break down the sugar lactose).

I have the same reaction to both (and it is not pretty): Start to feel sick with sour stomach, then vomit, diarrhea, stabbing cramps. I become cold, sometimes my hands and arms start to tingle. It is pretty outrageous. This will go on for hours. I have to do yoga breathing to prevent dry heaving into hypervenelation.

I saw two gastroenterologists who both said not to drink and had nothing else to offer.

I have since become the DD for life but do not give up hope there may be a cure for my drinking problem some day.

punk_pig · Newbie Joined: 16 Aug 2008 Posts: 1

It is not something that all Doctors will tell you - because they are concerned with finding out if there are serious medical problems occuring - but alchohol can bring on Panic Attacks. I have apparently always been prone to panic attacks(although i didn't know it) but alcohol has made them worse. Now I still drink but cannot tell which occasions Im going to have a bad reaction although it is usually only 1 attack in 20 occasions. I had tests for adrenal cancer and when negative the doctor didn't even mention Panic Attacks! (apparently because I didn't look like the nervous type) It happened so often and was so extreme that I became a recluse and this lead to Panic Attacks even when not drinking. Since then I have learned relaxation techniques and my Panic Attacks don't happen much any more but I can wake up 1 hour in to sleep after drinking (sometimes lots, sometimes only a tiny ammount) with shakes and sweats, needing to evacuate my bowels, feeling nauseous with my mind racing, mouth dry. It is horrible but relaxation techniques DO HELP because just as the physical affects of alcohol can effect your emotional reactions your emotional state can make changes to your physical reactions eg slow your heart rate by learning diaphragmatic breathing.

Have I Developed Alcohol Intolerance

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