Entry bubble Hangover Helpers

By: Joanne | January 01, 2008 | Category: Health

Man pouring champagne into champagne flutesHappy New Year! I’m sorry, was I shouting a bit too loudly? Is your head throbbing and your stomach queasy from overindulgence last night? Gather ‘round friends and let me tell you about a topic I know well:  the hangover.

Through a rigorous method of trial and error, I’ve learned that the best way to relieve a wicked hangover is not to get one in the first place. Let’s first talk about what the National Institutes of Health recommend for preventing a hangover:

Dehydration is your enemy my friend.  Drink water before, during and after consuming alcohol.
Have food in your stomach while you’re consuming alcohol.
Drink higher quality alcohol because these products are usually put through a more rigorous filtration process and therefore contain fewer toxins.  The scientists refer to these toxins as congeners.  This one was news to me.


Toast the holidays, toast your friends or toast toast, but consume alcohol moderately.  If you find that moderation isn’t possible, take a moment to consider the possibility that you’ve got a health problem to work on.  Try this handy screening test to help you identify hazardous or risky drinking. 

But enough of my speech – you need help now, don’t you dear?  The Department of Health and Human Services has some tips to help that hangover:

Sleep:  because you always feel better when you’re well rested, don’t you?
Have some juice or honey, research shows that the fructose may help to get the alcohol out of your system faster.
Eat complex carbs like bread or crackers.
Drink plenty of water to avoid dehydration.

I wish you a healthy and happy New Year, and I want you to keep in mind that I’m a web content manager and if you’re looking for medical advice, you should always talk to your doctor.

| Comments [2] | envelope Email This Entry | Tags: alcohol   alcoholism   drinking   eve   hangover   joanne   new   year  

 

Entry bubble Finding Information About Illnesses and Other Ailments Online

By: Jake | December 03, 2007 | Category: Health

My brother recently did a two week stint in the hospital because he had pancreatitis. He’s fine now, but it was quite a scare.

If you are like most of the people I have talked to (that aren’t doctors or nurses), you probably have never heard of pancreatitis. When I found out my brother had it I scoured the Internet to find out everything I could about it. I found two really good websites that provided insight on the ailment and ways to prevent future cases.

MedlinePlus has information on 740 different diseases and ailments and it is where I found the Pancreatitis link above. This is no surprise since MedlinePlus is maintained by the world’s largest medical health library, the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

I found out at MedlinePlus that there are two forms of pancreatitis, acute and chronic, and it can be triggered by alcoholism and diabetes. My brother had acute pancreatitis and his doctors said his pancreatitis was caused by diabetes, which he was unaware he had.

I know a lot about diabetes since I read Sam’s recent blog post. Still I was able to find more information about diabetes using HealthFinder.gov, a partnership of many federal agencies maintained by the Department of Health and Human Services. HealthFinder.gov focuses more on prevention than MedlinePlus and links to carefully selected information and Web sites from over 1,500 health-related organizations.

While the internet is not the only way to find health information, these two sites can cover a lot of ground for you. And as always the best health expert is your doctor.

| envelope Email This Entry | Tags: alcoholism   diabetes   health   hhs   library   medical   medicine   pancreatitis