St. Patrick’s Day is next week and time to celebrate being Irish (…whether you are actually Irish or not).

Hangovers are considered, for many, a necessary evil. So here is some sound advice for those planning to partake in the holiday celebrations that hopefully can help alleviate the impending beer and wine flu!

Before the big night:

Eat something before you start drinking. You don’t have to eat much, but choose something that will stay in your stomach. This will delay the absorption of alcohol into your bloodstream.

Hydrate. Alcohol dehydrates you, so it’s important to prepare for a big night of drinking by drinking enough water. Start drinking water the day before, and try to drink water before you leave instead of alcohol. It also depletes Magnesium. Consider getting a Hydration IV Therapy with a Magnesium Booster to help avoid getting a hangover.

Have coconut water and ibuprofen by your bed for when you get home. Coconut water is naturally isotonic, and it is absorbed faster and more efficiently than non-isotonic liquids. So you get rehydrated faster. It is packed with the potassium and magnesium that your body has lost.

During the big night:

Pace yourself. Especially if with a large group. People drink at different paces, and everyone has different tolerance levels. Pacing yourself is key. Limiting your drink intake to approximately one per hour is advised.

Take a break. You don’t have to have an alcoholic drink every round – have a water or a non alcoholic beer. The key here is to slow the alcohol absorption down.

Try to choose clear drinks over dark drinks. Dark drinks are known to have more congeners which only increase the effects of a hangover.

Consider taking an anti inflammatory (like ibuprofen), along with a dose of stomach acid suppression medication (such as Nexium) just before you go asleep so that these are in your system to counteract the symptoms resulting from alcohol intake.

Some hangover symptoms are caused by low-grade inflammation, so anti-inflammatories help. Hangovers tend to produce higher levels of cytokines in their blood. Cytokines are proteins that your immune system releases when it detects a threat.

They’re a key part of the inflammation process, which sets your body’s defenses in motion. Inflammation causes pain, swelling and redness around injuries and body aches and fevers when you have the flu. This is why anti-inflammatory supplements can help prevent hangovers, or at the very least, reduce symptoms of them!

The next day:

If after implementing all of the prevention recommendations, you still end up with a hang over, this is how you get rid of it quickly:

Eat breakfast or lunch. Whatever time you wake up, try to get some food into you. This St. Patrick’s Day Recovery Smoothie should help you feel better fast!

Re-hydrate! Yes, again, make sure that you are keeping yourself hydrated. It will speed up the recovery process.

Come and see us! We have a Recovery IV Therapy and several other options to get you back to feeling great ASAP. Walk ins are welcome!