Question regarding the DTs

Oh how I wish I'd taken you're advice, copy and paste😩😩😩 just written a lengthy reply to Bryan, basically saying the same as you, only not as well written as yours.

I am going to Spain on Saturday for a week, and will be having a few beers and cava. Your post explains why, after a great holiday, the week after, once home, I go on a binge sometimes.

i don't drink excessively when away, couple of beers at lunch, sangria late afternoon, vt before dinner and wine with meal.

Have I got this AWK, or just post holiday blues. I've certainly never had all those horrific things, voices, hallucinations etc. A friend on this forum (well I say friend, but don't know each other yet lol) described having the same experiences as Bryan, very scary

I meant kindling and AWK

I dunno, life's just one big jolly for you. 

It sounds more like ADE, Alcohol Depravation Effect. than kindling, kindling is the fact that detox becomes harder and harder the more times you do it. First time it is not so bad, after half a dozen times your body won't let go of alcohol so easily.

ADE is the following, taken from another forum, but moderation is getting so tight here, so I can't give them a mention.

'This means that the more an alcoholic is deprived of alcohol the

more he craves it. When they finally succumb to the craving it is usually

accompanied by drinking in a dangerous binge-like manner - this is when accidents and fatalities are likely to occur.

An alcoholic may consciously not want to drink but the wiring or mechanism (known as the opiodergic system in the brain) driving the addiction takes over and relapses. This happens to

about 85 % of all alcoholics who attempt to abstain. Their intentions are

good and at first the conscious will to abstain may keep them dry. However as time moves on the craving increases and the flood-gates open for the majority: they slip off the wagon.'

It means by abstaining for a short while, your system builds up a want for alcohol, a real driving thirst. Then by going on holiday, you're opening the flood gates and the brain/body does not want it to stop, so it holds on slightly tighter by its finger nails.

Every time you repeat the process, alccohol digs in ever harder and refuses to let go that little bit more. it's repetitive training. The only thing to do, once you have been hardened by alcohol over the years, is to find a balance and try and not go hi - lo.

Well, you're starting to think about your next holiday and I have my appointment with the gastro at the hospital tomorrow afternoon, very similar - not.

 

Naltrexone is available OTC in Spain, btw...

Thanks. I stocked up a few weeks ago when last over. I have a bathroom cabinet full of otc medications which I couldn't get in the uk. I've got campral, naltrexone (although not taken any) and 5 & 10mg diazapam. I could even open a shop lol! Will be getting more next week.

Many thanks for that interesting and factual post.

you know far more than these 'key workers' in alcohol services. No way am I going back to any of them again.

good luck with your appointment tomorrow. Is that to do with ascities?

That's agenda point 7) of 17). I have my patient records from Coventry as well now (100 pages) and I forwarded the gastro the list via email to forwarn him. So he brought the meeting forward by a couple of hours to allocate enough time for it.

I asked my GP to for this referral, I should not have had to do that, it should have automatically been done. There are so many things that should have been followed up by now. From simple things like, it will be two years next month since I was released from hospital and I am still taking the same eight medications daily. I can't believe that I still need to take vit B compound, thiamine and folic acid, but if I don't speak up, I'll end up taking them for years.

To more complicated things, like I should have a liver scan every six months (ultrasound), OGD (camera down the throat) to check oesophegeal varices for bleeding etc. and suspected haemochromoatosis which should be treated not just ignored. I could go on. And that is just on the alcohol side, their is the stroke/neuro side of things and some other things, and they also are not being deallt with.

So instead of waiting for things to (not) happen, I am now in the driving seat and pushing them. As always I have everything documented and evidence to back up all questions, so when they say, 'oh don't worry about that' - I go, 'well it says here in my hospital patient notes, that I am at risk and it is imperative that it is monitored on a six monthly basis' and then follow that up with 'of course if you disagree, I'll write to the consultant at the hospital and ask him if he has made a mistake and it wasn't so important'.

At that point, their face is usually a picture, with the thought of me writing to a consultant saying you must have got it all wrong because this consultant says so. I don't like doing things like that, but sometimes you meet the same sort of brick wall mentality that you do with alcohol recovery centres and it is the only language they understand.

I suspect I am going to be there between one and two hours and that is a long time with a hospital consultant.

Oh how I would love to be a fly on the wall! I worked in a hospital for years. You do realise consultants are like god don't you? Even ward rounds are done in a pecking order. Consultant followed by senior reg, then reg, SHO, and finally the poor HO! You can't critisise them at all!

They obviously realise something is amiss, hence you being allocated so much time.

please do a full report after your appointment, and I hope you get some answers and explanations. Good luck

I realise that in the hospital hierachy they are god, especially if they are a professor or a Mr. I had a professor as my gastro when in hospital and a Mr. at the rehab hospital.

I only have to read the letters between departments about me. The junior person 'advises' of something, the senior person 'requests' something to be done. Oh so subtle, but it is definetly there.

But I've worked in middle management for years and I am used to dealing with people like this, they are all just doctors to me, some good ones and some bad ones, I hold them in no awe.

Many years in management, many years honing the skills and so many senior training courses.

I will of course give you an update after the meeting.

You have to laugh and try to see the funny side of them. My favourite expression has to be consultant to reg 'dr so and so, walk with me, no not alongside, behind' how the poor chap was supposed to hear, God only knows!

i used to have to hold the phone for one as he didn't like the idea of germs. Another tried to hand me his apple core to put in the bin. That I did refuse by laughing and asking 'what his last slave died off?)'

​your update will no doubt brighten up my otherwise dull day

 

And Portugal, too.

And we also have reports of it being handed over the counter in South France.

"And Portugal, too.

And we also have reports of it being handed over the counter in South France."

This is great news!

and at 4 euros per item is less than half the price of a uk prescription.

It would be cheaper to go to France on a day trip, stock up and come home with the medication that we're denied in the UK!

Indeed, yes! Cheap meds, a quick little mini-vacation to the other side of the channel, what's not to like?