Ask Pat

Why do I feel so nauseous after a night of drinking?

Q)Whenever I get a hangover, I can't even get out of bed because I feel so nauseous. I get terrible headaches, chills, and I can't eat or drink anything without throwing up. Once I couldn't even drink water when I was hung over because it made me throw up. I thought that you're supposed to drink water to get rid of a hangover faster. I was just wondering why alcohol seems to affect me so severely-could it be the result of mixing different types of alcohol (wine, beer, hard liquor) or is it because of some kind of medical condition I could have?

A)

I would suspect the latter, or that you have a particularly low tolerance to, or even mild allergy of alcohol. Clearly your body is saying it doesn't like the aftereffects. Try drinking fewer quantities by interspersing non-alcoholic drinks between alcoholic. Drinking on a full stomach (of food), and drinking some water before going to bed should help too. The only proven remedy to a hangover however is time: it takes about 1 and 1/2 hours to process a single drink.