Drinks with electrolytes are your best bet for getting rid of a hangover. Did your mom ever give you Pedialyte when you had a stomach flu to help keep you hydrated? Well, Gatorade is the perfect anti hangover drink and it works like Pedialyte to help replenish the sodium, potassium, and chloride (electrolytes) levels in your body. Water just isn't enough. But make sure the Gatorade is at room temperature, not cold. Cold liquids make it harder for your body to absorb things.
Tums and Alkaseltzer are good for hangover relief. The remaining electrolytes you're missing because of dehydration are bicarbonates. Bicarbonates are found in things like baking soda, Tums, and Alkaseltzer. Not only do these products replenish bicarbonate electrolytes, they're also good for your stomach since alcohol tends to make your body produce more stomach acid than it needs. Hence, the nausea felt during a hangover.
Coffee with sugar is the next step for your hangover remedy. If you were dancing or making the beast with two backs last night, you've lost more than just sweat; you've lost sugars as well. Sugar is what our body's burn for energy. You need sugars to help get rid of a hangover. But why add coffee? Because coffee is a vasoconstrictor and it helps to make the veins in your brain a little smaller, relieving the pressure and tension around your head. That's why tension headache medicine has caffeine in it.
Although they don't help get rid of a hangover, painkillers are probably on the menu. Anything painkiller will work for a hangover, really. But if you've taken my advice and had a cup of coffee with sugar, don't take anything that claims to relieve migraines and tension headaches. Those pain medicines have caffeine in them, and the last thing you need is to add jitters to your long list of hangover symptoms.
Wrapping yourself in a nice warm blanket is the last step to getting rid of a hangover. If you've had enough alcohol, there might still be some left in your system since your body's metabolism slows down while you sleep. Alcohol lowers the body's core temperature, leaving you susceptible to illness and other bad things. Get yourself a warm blanket, a bottle of warm Gatorade, a cup of coffee with sugar, a bottle of extra-strength Tylenol, and a season of your favorite show on DVD. It's time to let your body relax.
Questions or suggestions? Try our Physical Health Forum.
Hangover Pills aren't Hangover Cures
Like I said, there's no such thing as a hangover cure. Drugs like Chaser claim that "ingredients in a Chaser hangover pill are activated calcium carbonate and charcoal that attract congeners and soak them up like a sponge before they can do their damage." Well, you can see why this hangover pill/cure might work because calcium carbonate is close enough to calcium bicarbonate; it need only react with water to become bicarbonate, the one electrolyte missing from Gatorade. Calcium carbonate is also used in most antacids. But the activated charcoal is the catcher here. Supposedly activated charcoal absorbs congeners, the "impurities" in alcoholic beverages that add taste and yumminess to the drinks. The problem with hangover pills like this is, most experts agree that it isn't the congeners—though some might play a part—that cause a hangover, but the amount of ethanal or Acetaldehyde present in the drink and produced by the body causing severe hangover symptoms. So, there's very little evidence to suggest that hangover pills like Chaser can cure a hangover. But you know what? If you try these hangover pills over an extended period of time and they help cure hangovers, let me know.
Me personally I left drinking years ago...
