In 2006A man came to the emergency room Glasgow South General Hospital afflicted with blurred vision and a severe headache of four weeks of duration. A multitude of tests were carried out, all of them with good results. There was no apparent neurological damage and his blood pressure was fine. In addition, his medical history did not have any remarkable problems and he also did not take drugs that could be causing this side effect.
The doctors did not initially know where to go until he recognized that just before the symptoms began he had drunk neither more nor less than sixty pints of beer. Thus, it was concluded that, in reality, what he had was a great hangover. Possibly, the longest hangover in the world
We cannot guarantee that no one has had a worse one. However, this is the longest that has been reported in the scientific literature. Specifically, the doctors who treated him published the case in a study in the magazine lancet.
The good thing is that with the prescribed treatment it was solved and shortly after he stopped experiencing the hangover. Possibly he would not want to drink so much beer again.
The longest hangover in the world
This man, of 37 years, acknowledged that he took refuge in beer after suffering a “domestic crisis”. She drank a total of 60 pints, spread over four days. A pint contains approximately 473 ml of beer. Since she drank 60, the total for this alcoholic beverage was 28.38 liters. This is a lot for the liver to cope with, so he soon experienced the consequences.
First there were many nausea and vomiting, accompanied by headache. He linked the nausea to a hangover, especially since it subsided 24 hours later. However, the headache was here to stay, as he continued to suffer from it day after day for four weeks. At that moment he couldn’t take it anymore and decided to go to the hospital.
There a series of tests were carried out, most of them normal, although they did find something out of the ordinary. On the one hand, the team of ophthalmologists detected that he had swollen optic discs and bleeding nerve fibers. Both are characteristic symptoms of a hangover. For this reason, they inquired into its recent history until it was recognized that they had drowned some sorrows in liters and liters of beer.
On the other hand, they detected high levels of lupus anticoagulant. This is an antibody that acts as prothrombotic agent. That is to say, it favors an excess of coagulation and, therefore, the formation of thrombi. Its high levels can be the reason for an autoimmune disease, such as lupus, but also for the consumption of some drugs. In this case, it could have been related to excessive alcohol consumption by the patient. Whatever the cause, it was resolved with anticoagulant treatment and, thus, the symptoms of the longest hangover in the world
The man made a full recovery with no sequelae. Within what is possible, it is a happy ending to a story that could even end with a ethyl coma, based on their ability to metabolize alcohol. But just because the symptoms of the world’s longest hangover disappeared doesn’t mean your health didn’t suffer.
Consuming alcohol, even occasionally and in moderation, can cause damage in the long run. And in a case like this with more reason, because it has very little moderate. The moral of all this is that we should never drown our sorrows in alcohol. In general, we should not drink. But, if we do it, let it not be almost 30 liters of beer in four days. Ending up in the Guinness Book of Records is the lightest thing that could happen to us.