Nearly everyone who has ever went out partying and drank too much before crawling into bed — if they made it that far — has experienced the awful feelings of a hangover. Pounding headaches, nausea, chills and excessive thirst are most common. According to Brunilda Nazario, MD, hangover symptoms are caused by a combination of dehydration since alcohol is a diuretic and a rapid drop in blood-alcohol levels as alcohol leaves the system.
Traditional home remedies include drinking water to rehydrate the body and help dilute impurities, aspirin to relieve the throbbing headache and burnt toast to add carbon the stomach and filter impurities. Other home remedies include everything from eating ginger to drinking more. Even using these methods, it can take eight to 24 hours to relieve symptoms.
According to a 3 News report, The Hangover Clinic in Sydney treats patients with intravenous fluids and an alcohol-free vitamin cocktail for 30 minutes. The cost? $140.
For those who are really hung-over and need a bit more help, the clinic provides two liters of intravenous fluids and the vitamin cocktail along with oxygen therapy over the course of an hour for $200.
If the whole group of party-goers is experiencing a horrible hangover, they can walk into the clinic together and use the VIP lounge for group recovery. The idea behind treating a hangover with IV fluids has some logic behind it. The quickest way to treat dehydration and rehydrate the body is intravenously and since most hangover systems are due to the diuretic effects of alcohol, treating the dehydration should relieve the hangover.
However, The Sydney Morning Herald reports concerns from the Public Health Association of Australia’s Michael Moore that “this encourages people to use alcohol in an entirely inappropriate way and it’s something the government should look at very, very carefully.” The concern is that by providing a quick and easily accessible remedy for people to avoid the nasty hangover, it will encourage more binge drinking since they do not have to suffer the after-effects.
Hangover Clinic co-founder Max Petro disagrees. “We don’t serve alcohol. We are not a pub. We encourage binge drinking as much as hospitals encourage people to get sick.”
Even so, Stephen Parnis, National AMA Vice President, suggested the Hangover Clinic was nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Furthermore, he told The Sydney Morning Herald, “This is not a magic hangover cure and people are going to do themselves significantly more harm if they continue to drink at heavy levels. The fact remains, alcohol is the drug that causes the greatest harm in our society.”
What do you think? Does the Hangover Clinic provide a valuable service to rehydrate people after a night out drinking or does it encourage binge drinking by eliminating some of the natural consequences?
