Hangover cures (you know 'Rub half a lemon in the pit of your “drinking
arm”.' and the like)... Any that work? Dont tell me to drink water, I
usually drink 3 pints when the music stops and probably another 1 or 2 when
I get back home Any more would upset the osmotic balance, or whatever
it is.

Also : Nurofen.. Safe to take if you have been on the lash? Conflicting
information rules the net, need to know which one is the HydrogenAudio
answer (the right one).

I read somewhere about Milk Thistle and Evening Primose last week, and Queg's (Girlfriend) had some of these. I confiscated some and took them before the session, when I got home from the session, and when I woke up. It didnt really do much. Perhaps it elongated the headache slightly and nullified the belly rage slightly, but nothing to write home about.

Put yours on the table....

Drink more in the morning, establish that equilibrium you were quite comfortable with the night before.

Ruairi

Black coffee.

Taking a vitamin pill before going to bed, and another one when waking up. Specially, legend says, B vitamin is supposed to be the one. I used to have a box of a pill that had 3 variations of B, in a very high amount. And if it doesn´t do anything, or you take too much, the excess safely goes to the urine, so no harm in trying. It used to work for me quite well...

Black coffee, on the other hand, I have always heard it dehidrates you even more, and it does more harm than good. Coffeine helps, but it really gets you down when the effect goes off...

I have also heard that drinking some wine or beer in the morning when you wake up helps, but my stomach has always made it impossible for me... (hangover makes me want to puke when I get close to the glass of wine or beer...)

The following morning, you need to restore blood sugar levels ASAP.

@Lev: Speaking from personal experience, about 20 years ago(!!), I was prescribed a fairly heavy daily dosage of Ibuprofen(drug name for Nurofen, Brufen, etc) that I continued to take for about 7 years (incurable back problem). During that time I was foolish enough to 'abuse the demon alcohol'( ) probably as heavily as I ever have and, whatever medical opinion may advocate to the contrary, I can assure you that I suffered no side effects either then, or since.

True, thats why my cure is a bottle of Coca Cola. It's loaded with sugar, caffine and the fizz strips that horrible carpet tounge sensation away!

After that, its time for the cold pizza left lying around!

Kristian

Once you get over your hangover, you'll need energy. Nothing beats "Ripped Fuel" for a picker upper (available at GNC). I had to cut down on drinking though...my arms became too big and I was breaking keyboards.

xen-uno

So we're at the drinking part again...
In my life I had s o m e experiences with what people call alcohol (I call it liquid bread... )... O.K., more than some... quite a lot comes near.

Well, there is actualy some suff you can buy in a pharmacy, called 'hangoverhelper' (they realy call it so), it contains some b-vitamins, and lot's of other good stuff I can't remember, I got them in Ireland once... worked well on me.

And the legendary beer in the morning works realy good too. You see, alkohol is a kind of drug, and so you got withdrawal symptons from it. To drink another beer i.t. morning gives the body some more of the drug eases the effect.

Of course water goes without mentioning, dehydration.
It also works good for me to drink one or two glaces of water during drinking.

And if you've eaten quite well before you start to drink, you can one the one hand drink more , one the other hand your stomach can work on the alcohol better, at least in my exp.

But, the best cure of all, is just to spend a whole day sleeping in bed, and do nothing at all (eyept drink water and complain about headache)

One of my methods is to stay hydrated *while drinking*. In other words, if I drink 5 or 6 beers, then have a largish glass of water or diet pepsi in between every couple drinks. It seems to greatly diminish any negative effects later on.

It may not be practical in a bar however, with the price of water or soft drinks often equivalent to the actual alcohol.

Pain is good. :x

Part of the allure of a good drunk is seeing if you survive the next day (daze?). Why try to prevent the inevitable?

Anyway, a huge breakfast of OE eggs fried in bacon grease, hashbrowns, OJ, coffee, toast and maybe a fistful of Excedrin does wonders. It'll either cure you, or kill ya.

Best hangover cure: Do something other than alcohol. GHB is similar, without the nasty hangovers. Really, there's a cornucopia of various substances all more interesting than the mundanity of alcohol.

Yeah, but alcohol is time-tested for thousands of years (and it's legal and relatively cheap too, which is no small advantage)...

Where was GHB in the year 200 BC?

Myself I would indulge in other, more green and smokable illicit substances before I hit G again.

I prefer alcohol to G because it is legal and I know exactly how much ethanol is in the bottle. With G, X, L etc., it's pretty damn random what you get, especially if it's liquid.

If you like G, you might be able to find a retailer who will sell you GBL (which is converted to GHB in the body) at a known concentration.

Having tried many substances over the years... IMHO most are just a bit "too" non-mundane, sometimes resulting in "excessive interest" and concomitant effects that can be far worse than a hangover.

Fwiw, I don't mess with anything but alcohol these days, and that in reasonable quantities. But if I had kids, I wouldn't pound it into their heads... people have to try stuff to realize what's a dead end & what's not... that's life.

fewtch:
Very true, there is nothing worse than a crackhead for a friend, except possibly a tweaker for a friend.

By the way, GHB is naturally occuring in the human body and is a precursor of GABA (GammaAminoButyric Acid), one of the more (maybe most?) potent neurotransmitters with inhibitory activity.

So, GHB was in your greatgreatgreat^3 grandmothers brain in 200BC

Note that just because GHB is a precursor of a neurotransmitter doesnt mean its good for you in large amounts...

Yep... the same can be said of the naturally occurring opioid receptors in the brain, and natural opiates in the body (endorphins), which afaic doesn't say *anything* about the safety or advisability of shooting heroin...

Not to mention, that wonder of wonders, DMT, which occurs naturally in the brain as well.

The brain itself occurs naturally in/as the brain -- from here, it makes the most sense to let the brain alone to occur naturally however it happens to occur. If you think you can improve on millions of years of evolution, more power to ya.

There have been others with this idea, of course. Some have died, some just gave up and counted themselves lucky to have a few brain cells left. Nobody (that I know of) ever made any lasting improvements.

Ive learned from experience you can control whether or not you get a hangover by being very selective about your drink. First and foremost avoid anything with preservatives in it (ie. bud, coors, etc.), its the chemicals combined with dehydration and loss of essential nutrients that hurts the next day. I prefer non-pastuerized more natural beverages as they seem alot healthier than most commercialized alcohol beverages (and usually more potent ). Plus i get good results if i sleep lots the next day if i do happen to intake something toxic. Water + time is the only scientifically proven cure. Its very smart to stay hydrated even during the drinking session.

There are many problems that evolution doesn't fix. Basically, anything that doesn't kill ya, that you can overcome, but is still annoying, it won't fix.

The brain is the way it is because Nature, like Microsoft, doesn't know when a project is completely hopeless and must be re-written.

You make very valid points, however. Kids, don't do drugs. This is a public service announcement.

mostly, you're dehydrated. Just drink lots and lots of water.

I can relate to this. When I found the beverage that didn't totally beat my head in I figured it had to do with no preservatives. The so-called king of beers, Budweiser, is reported as having the highest formaldehyde content of americian domestic brew. For me it is the king of pain.

Surprised nobody mentioned environment yet. The super-smoky taverns always seem to contribute to a lot of pain the next morning. Alcohol +O2 deprevation = ouch!

Of course not, but heroin is somewhat different. Stating that intake of anything that exists in your brain will hurt you is of course inaccurate. Tyrosine for instance, is the basis of all the catecholamine receptors.

Interestingly enough, THC's method of action relies on the idiosyncratic cannabinoid receptors in the brain, whose agonist (anandamide) may act as a dopamine antagonist.

This seems to imply that we may be giving certain hyperactive children in the future THC solutions instead of somethin like Riddilin. Ironically, THC is probably the less harmful drug



Make sure you're getting Dimethyltryptamine NOT Dimethyl Terepthalate (though the LD50 of the latter is probably much higher)


As for hangovers, to my knowledge most of the symptoms are believed to be a result of the buildup of Acetaldehyde adducts - the more ethanol you take in, the less likely that LAD/ADH will completely catalyze the EtOH -> Acetate.

I just have one small suggestion as a response to the original poster: The most effective way of getting rid of hangovers is to avoid getting them in the first place by not drinking so much the day before. Very simple

And as a response to some other posts here in the thread: Why do some people brag about how much they drink (or used to drink when they were younger) as if it was a good thing? I'm even more puzzeled by the people who are so proud over using (or having used) illegal drugs. What is there to be proud over?

Finally: how many thinks that alcohol and tobacco would be legal if they were unknown until now and just introduced? The only reason it is not banned is that it's already so widespread.

.
groan...

Things I wouldnt know whether they do any good or not, because I always do them anyway:

::Stay Hydrated during the 'sesh' -- I drink virtually exactly the same amount of tap water (which is free from 99% of town venues in England), as I do alcohol.
::Drink sh1tloads when I get home
::Vitamin B -- I have a tablet every day which contains, I think, 4 forms of Vitamin B, including a hilarious ~12000% of the RDA for B12. These things cost a lot, but I am a healthy chappy. Probably placebo, but thats good enough


Alcohol definately would be. No questions.

As for Bud being the King of pain, I agree. Well, I hate bud with a passion, but similar mass produced lagers give me a splitting headache, as opposed to decent real ale or stronger Belgium Brews. I feel a lot better, even if I am much more drunk, with these 'decent' beers...

Re: DMT - SO much interesting reading out there on the net about this. Such as the notion that the brain secretes its stock of this stuff when you are about to die, thus calming you, and giving you that near death experience type thing.

Stating comments about != being proud about. I don't see any pride in the last 10 posts as I double check before posting this. There's just a few people having a conversation about the recreational use of substance.

I have seen that sort of pride in some people, though. I think most of it comes from either the male machismo or the female need to relate with everybody on every level possible. Some men consider it a mark of distinction to be able to drink several thousand (OK, hyperbole) ounces of hard liquor and still be able to stand on two feet. I don't understand this, but oh well.

As for the illegal drugs, well...

[POLITICAL RANT]
Their illegality is questionable at best. They are a "crime" without a victim. The only "victim" is the person doing them, and it's that person's own responsibility to keep his life on track. The catch is that in today's society, no one is made to be responsible for anything at all. That is why drugs are illegal, and I consider that a load of hogwash. In Canada (Western especially) there aren't too many people who care deeply about our antiquated drug laws anymore, which suits me fine.
[/POLITICAL RANT]

And, of course, I'm heading away on vacation for a week in about an hour, so if you want to debate with me, you'll have to wait 'til I'm back.

True, but I added my own interpretation of the posts mostly because I wanted you to comment on it

But in the ranting block I think you are wrong. People taking drugs don't only hurt themselves. They hurt other people as well, and that's the reason why it is illegal. A couple of examples: drunk drivers kill people, drunk husbands beating their wives and children, parents with heavy addictions ignore their children, drug users cause harm to themselves which the society must take care of in the form of medical and psychological treatment and thus taking money from IMO more important areas, heavy drug usage makes you less productive (hangovers etc) and thus the economy as a whole would suffer if a large amount of the population started using more drugs. These are all good reasons to ban the use of any "recreational" drug.

I wish you a pleasant vacation, and hope that someone else will take up where you left off. Would be nice to hear what your side says about my arguments.

Acetaldehyde is a substance which may reasonably be anticipated to be a carcinogen, according to the Seventh Annual Report on Carcinogens, National Toxicology Program, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is also classified in EPA's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) to be a known or suspected carcinogen. When ingested or inhaled, acetaldehyde can irritate the eye, nose, and throat; cause conjunctivitis, coughing, central nervous system depression (that's the drunkenness we know), eye and skin burns, dermatitis, and delayed pulmonary edema.

CH3COH

This link also has some great information too, not that you guys haven't experienced it before though

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangover

and also

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acetaldehyde

In short, why should the actions of a few people cause criminalization for everyone? I would think most people find it insulting to be punished for 'crimes' they have not yet committed. Not everyone that drinks is guilty of DUI or assault, nor does every user of illicits directly contribute to public discord.

Good point. But I'm also against for example the right to carry weapons in public areas. Even though it would probably work for most people, there is always the risk of somebody clicking, and the less people who carry weapons the better IMO. I'd rather give up that freedom for the safety it gives. (Actually I think it's like this in every country, so there is really no way we can try the other way where everybody carries guns. I assume it's because people found out it's the wisest way to choose) In other words: society has a responsibility towards every individual to provide safety and at the same time to not inflict too much on their freedom. How much do you trust your "fellow man"?

Yeah, aldehydes are typically not good for you because of their highly reactive nature.

Interestingly enough, acetaldehyde is worse for you than ethanol itself (though acetate/AA is much less so than either), and the same goes for formaldehyde from methanol, the former of which causes the blindness and/or death seen with excess methanol consumption. Don't drink too much absinthe, dammit!

Edit ... blah

RIGHT.
"Miracle mixes", industrial ammounts of vitamines... bah. The B12 can help, but the excess is as bad as the carence for a "normal" human body. So in case of alcohol abuse, the best solution is to metabolize all those bad substances as fast as you can. The plan is:
- Sunday morning - Yoghourt + aspirin + water.
- Water + prudential time - ~15 Km of bike or 20-30 minutes running = Transpiration + high energy waste.
- More water. Your blood must be almost clean now.
And don't drink too much the next weekend.

Café de Colombia!!





However, The most I have drunk is two bottles of whisky and half a bottle of vodka, so I don't know if it works when you drink too much.

A "hair of the dog that bit" is time tested and true. That is, have a drink in the morning. A couple of fat lines of coke will do it, too, for 20 minutes. Drinking on the morning after is an indication of nascent alcoholism. Coke for anything is an indication of a serious anti-social personality disturbance.

I do not recommend either cure. Actually, I suggest you don't drink so much as a better course of action. Have you tried that? B)