Alcohol Incident

[jasonleon]

One night my girlfirend was stressed and had a glass of vodka, I noticed she was crying outside so I wanted to give her some alone time. Next thing I noticed was she was lying on the ground and was complaining about chest pain (upper abdominal), she was totally conscious; however, she was jumpy, she said it was just from pain. When I called the ER the nurse had asked if she had a history of seizures, which she doesn't.

She drinks occasionally, but all the hospital did was check for alcoholism as in do an ECG of her heart rate which was really fast during the incident, some blood tests, and urine tests, which all came out normal. She was diagnosed with alcoholism and the doctor did not run any other tests like a CT scan or anything for the abdomen.

So my questions are, was the "jumpiness" a minor form of seizure or could she just have been moving around because of the pain?

Why did the doctor not run any extra tests and treat my girlfriend as if she was an alcoholic and treat the situation as merely happening because of "alcohol". It could have been a pancreatic attack or something else so I'm not sure of the diagnosis.

[Nighthawk61]

You're a good friend to have :) keep it up. God bless you both.

[jasonleon]

That's what I had assumed, however since they didn't check for traces of seizure through (CT scans) or anything of the brain, is it a concern now to get it checked? Not knowing if it was a seizure or not. I was told the traces of the chemicals in the brain would be gone by now since it was 2 months ago and any form of brain damage would have shown up since then, and she has been fine, so it is necessary to get a brain CT at this point.

[ibizan]

I would direct this question to her family doctor!

[ibizan]

People can have episodes of intoxication minus being an alcoholic.BUT if the episodes of intoxication become more frequent w/consistent loss of control then one could be entering the waters of alcoholic drinking!

[jasonleon]

Thanks for your replies. I checked her diagnosis paper and it said alcohol "intoxication". I guess this makes more sense than alcoholism but still, she isn't a heavy drinker.

[BarbD]

Perhaps they diagnosed alcoholic cirrhosis (of the liver) not alcoholism.

[Jacker]

I don't think there is a medical diagnosis for "alcoholism".  They can check blood alcohol level, and they can check the organs to see if they've sustained damage from things like alcohol. For instance, a blood test would  indicate whether your liver is working correctly  ( at least at that moment in time. ).  I would suggest reading the medical charts carefully to see what they  actually diagnosed.

Alcohol, and  the process of sobering up from alcohol  can cause chest pains,  increased heart rate,  and lots of cardiac issues. That is not necessarily "alcoholism ",  but simply the effects of alcohol in your body.

[jasonleon]

It was in a whiskey glass. Well they didn't just check for "alcoholism" but it seems that most of the basic tests revolved around what may have been caused by alcohol, no extra CTs were done and she was just diagnosed with alcoholism. So I'm not sure if the jumpiness was from that as well as the chest pain and fast heartbeat.

[ibizan]

i've never heard of ER doing tests for alcoholism?how BIG was the glass of vodka she had?