Try to rehydrate — but, if you can’t keep fluids down, it’ll require a trip to the doctor. To stay hydrated and offset any unwanted side effects, Ricanati recommends drinking a glass of water along with your morning cup of coffee. However, it’s important to note that Auto Brewery Syndrome is not just limited to an isolated condition.
He says in addition to what he’s uncovered about how to test for and treat ABS, he’s also found that 60 percent of patients who have ABS suffer from acid reflux and 30 percent have anxiety or depression. “I’ve seen them go three times the DWI level in two hours,” Wickremesinghe said of some of his patients. Wickremesinghe took cultures from Mongiardo’s intestines, did a blood alcohol content test in a controlled hospital environment and diagnosed Mongiardo with ABS. “That’s when I lost everything. I lost everything that somebody could lose,” he said. In fact, it’s so common that most emergency departments do pregnancy tests on women of childbearing age who present feeling unwell.
You could experience anything from nausea, because of how alcohol triggers your empty stomach lining, to headaches caused by dehydration, to anxiety from a chemical compound your body produces called acetaldehyde. But what does being drunk feel like without alcohol in the mix, sometimes these symptoms still happen. Think about the headache and brain fog you get the day after you haven’t really slept, or that upset-tummy feeling from eating a questionable piece of cheese. The gut plays a crucial role in the phenomenon of feeling drunk without drinking, as certain foods can trigger the fermentation process that produces alcohol in the body.
“I got through day one with hot and cold spells, increased pulse, high blood pressure, and headaches. My jaws hurt as well, but possibly that’s from tension. Already, I feel better and hope every day continues that way.” Your sleeping pattern tends to improve because alcohol is a sedative, but it has a very short half-life. So even if you are incredibly inebriated and fall asleep, it’s likely you’ll wake up at some point in the night and experience rebound insomnia. In January, I tend to see an uptick in patients who have been admitted due to alcohol dependence.
Before we explore the phenomenon of phantom hangovers, it’s essential to understand what a typical hangover entails. A hangover is a collection of unpleasant physical and mental symptoms that occur after consuming too much alcohol. Common symptoms include headache, fatigue, nausea, dizziness, and irritability. If you start to act like you’re drunk but you haven’t had alcohol to drink, you may suspect auto-brewery syndrome.