World’s worst hangover

Stop us if you’ve heard this one.

A man walks into a doctor’s office in Glasgow, Scotland complaining about a headache; a headache he’s had for four weeks straight.

At first the doctors were stumped.  He had no history of head problems before, no recent trauma to the head, and he wasn’t taking any medication.  His blood pressure and brain scan both returned normal results.  Finally someone called in a eye specialist.

The ophthalmologist found that he had swollen optical disks, greatly enlarged blind spots and what eye doctors call “flame hemorrhages”, or bleeding nerve fibers.  After more questioning, the patient finally remembered to mention the 60 pints of beer (35 liters) he had over a four day period.  Binge drinking causes headaches, who knew?  Severe dehydration caused by the alcohol, the doctors surmised, had led to a rare condition called cerebral venous sinus thrombosis (CVST).  We are still calling it a hangover.

It took over six months of blood thinning medication (isn’t that what alcohol does anyway??) to restore the man’s vision, and relieve the headache.