Sixty-beer binge leads to four-week hangover

Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2007 2:57 pm

Sixty-beer binge leads to four-week hangover
It may be the longest hangover in the history of binge beer drinking.

The Herald Sun

When a 37-year old man walked into a hospital emergency room in Glasgow, Scotland last October complaining of "wavy" vision and a non-stop headache that had lasted four weeks, doctors were at first stumped, the British journal The Lancet reported today.

The unnamed patient "had no history of head injury or loss of consciousness; his past medical record was unremarkable, and he was taking no medications . . . ." Body temperature and blood pressure were both normal, and a neurological exam scanned negative.

But when an eye specialist was called in, the fog began to clear, at least for the doctors.

The patient, said the ophthalmologist, had swollen optical discs, greatly enlarged blind spots and what eye doctors call "flame haemorrhages," or bleeding nerve fibres.

"We sought a more detailed history" from the patient, noted one named Zia.

This is when the man revealed he had consumed 60 pints - roughly 35 litres - of beer over a four day period, following a domestic crisis.