astraboy

Right, before you read this I should tell you that I will go into lurid detail and it aint gonna be pretty, so if you dont wanna read on then dont. Anyone out there that think they might be able to help then please offer an opinion. Cheers.
What I want to know is, Why does my digestive system totally shut down when I attend an all night rave?
I go to these things fairly regularly and the worst part of it is having to deal with the after effects.
Before you blame the little fellas I wanna say that I'm totally natural and DONT do drugs at these things.
What I do do is a **** load of alcohol(vodka based energy drinks and lager mainly), Caffiene tablets, dextrose energy tablets and loads of water.
I try to eat before and during the event, but if I'm totally honest, The first thing I have to do after I leave at the end of the night is find a toilet and empty my digestive system. The really worrying thing is what comes out. Take today, I might as well kept what food I have bought throughout the night in my pocket, then in the morning broken it into little pieces and flushed it down the toilet. Basically what i'm saying is that the food is completely undigested when i get rid of it.
The worst part of it is trying to eat after a rave. These days I force myself to eat as its very difficult to sleep without doing so.Before I eat, I feel incredibly ill, like a stomach cramp but 10 times worse. When I get somthing (usually a BLT sandwich) I have to physically force it down, all the time feeling like I'm 1/2 a second away from throwing it back up again.
Once I have eaten my system seems to restart but its always after a rave, never during.
Of course while I'm at an event I'm dancing like a lunatic. This event was not uncommon with me dancing non stop for about 6 hours or so, could this have somthing to do with it?
More to the point, can anyone offer an explanation? Any suggestions as to how I prevent this happening wouldnt go amiss either. Try not to say dont go raving cos I feel that isnt an option.
Thanks in advance and cheers for reading,
astraboy.

[Edited by astraboy - 6/30/2002 12:06:00 AM]

Luke

Thank god you cant post "Smells"!!!!!!

Why dont you leave the wrappers on??? Quick wash and you could save yourself a load of money!!

astraboy

Luke, trust me you're very lucky I cant.
astraboy.

SL2

I would take a break from raving for a bit. How many raves are you going to anyway?.

STi wanna Subaru

iTrader: (1)

All that crap you take you would probably be better off taking drugs.............. sorry not helpfull.

Look at it this way. All the dancing is a lot of exercise. How many athletes do you see ramming food down their throats after they've finished working out. They just have fluids. Also as most of your blood supply will be feeding your muscles, heart and lungs there wont be a huge blood supply going to your stomach, this may explain you feeling sick.

All the above is based on no sound knoladge at all

Scooby Dooby Blue

astraboy

your digestive system ain't shutting down mate...if it did, you wouldn't be crapping at all.

acute dehydration probably isn't helping your situation much!

i've kinda passed the "friday-night-'til-monday-morning-non-stop" phase but i still remember the after effects of a big night out.

stay off the stimulants mate, be they legal or not, they're not helping your come down scenario.

just try one night out (experiment on a not so important event), with just bevvie and water/red bull whatever. see how it goes.

from the amount of "Ravers get ready" posts i've seen, you're maybe just overdoing it a bit

hope you get it sorted mate

paul

BOB.T

AB, there's a typo in your first post, it implies you do, do drugs

Haven't a clue bout your problem though!

On a complety seperate note..... are you going USC again this year? My mate wants to, I'm not sure if I can be arsed though?

Bob

orbv

Stay away from the energy drinks or only have one tops.

Jen

More water!!!! You're essentially doing 6 hours excercise, you need to drink (little bits) of water every 15-20minutes during hard excercise which would include dancing like a maniac!

Alcohol is no good as it dehydrates (hense hangovers - these are really symptoms of dehydration) and energy drinks whilst being better are sugary etc. and don't help a great deal...hope you don't go to the places that charge you £5 for a bottle of water!

I second the idea of drinking less alchol and more water next time as an experiment. In my younger days ( I'm only 23!) we used to do alchol/water alternatly...seemed to work quite well, but I'm not sure I was as enthusiastic as you! Oh, and only eat if your hungrey...personally it used to take me at least 2 hours until I could eat happily after basketball training, and although intensive it was only 2 1/2 hours worth! ...give your body time to catch up before eating...

Hope that helps some - not much science behind that, only what I was taught by a sports-sciency mate on the basketball team!

Jen

SiCotty

I am no expert but the idea of your body diverting the energy required to digest food (I think it's a lot) into the energy required for you to dance/excersise is probably the best explanation. Might have something to do with the large amount of Adrenalin you also produce.

Si

DJB

Where do I start?

Alcohol has a multitude of effects apart from the obvious ones. One of its effects is to delay stomach emptying. This is why when you're sick, the food appears undigested - thats because it is. Food needs to enter the small intestine to get fully digested. It doesn't in your case because of the alcohol.

Next, alcohol irritates your stomach lining (called alcohol gastritis). This causes upper abdominal pain (like a burning pain). In addition, both alcohol and caffeine relax the muscle at lower end of the gullet. This allows the acid contents of the stomach to reflux into the gullet. This causes upper abdominal pain or heart burn.

The cure - well kind of obvious but you won't want to know the best cure. No alcohol and no caffeine.

The only alternative if you must drink is to take something which lowers the acidity of the stomach before you go out. You can buy Zantac at pharmacies and this supposedly works well. Take 150 mg (2 tablets I think) 2 hours before you drink anything.

I hope this helps.

D.

astraboy

<AB, there's a typo in your first post, it implies you do, do drugs>
heh, cheers bob, you can tell I'm still wasted from the night before.
Sorry bout that people, but I'm totally natural and DONT do drugs at these things or indeed anywhere else either.
Also, cheers for the replies everybody, its a lot of reading and I'm too tired to do it tonight so I'll take a proper look at it tomorrow.
Many thanks,
astraboy.
P.S. Yes I am going to USC this year Bob, Fancy meeting up again?

BOB.T

AB, USC, if you're going, I'm going, see you there matey

I'll mail you nearer the time and sort it out

JoanUK300

Sorry astraboy I have no sympathy for you......just remember how you abused your body 10yrs from now.....for heavens sake ease up a little and respect yourself for a while......

Joan.

astraboy

I'm not looking for sympathy. Just an explanation for whats happening and a way to avoid it. Its fair to say that what I'm doing constitutes abuse and fairly harsh abuse at that, but I lived a fairly conservative lifestyle up until 2000 when I nearly died on the operating table. I nearly died without even beginning to live. I dont intend to make the same mistake again.
"Life is either a daring adventure.... or nothing"
Helen Keller.
astraboy.

BOB.T

Helen Keller got a cheese grater for Xmas, she said it was the most gruesome thing she'd ever read