Inspired by this thread, I was wondering if anyone else is like me. I am very sensitive to alcohol. When I first drank anything in high school, I would very soon after throw it up (one wine cooler). Not surprisingly, I never became much of a drinker. I did consciously up my tolerance so I could enjoy a margarita or two without ill effects (other than being drunk, of course). For some weird reason, tequila is the least offensive to my body. I did this by having the bartender in the restaurant where I worked serve me really weak margaritas and gradually make them stronger. Later I learned to like red wine. Now if I ever drink anything, it’s one glass of wine every two or three weeks. Or less often.
Getting to the point: on the other hand, I can take massive amounts of medication. I have had a lot of dental work – just naturally bad teeth – and the dentist ALWAYS has to give me more, more, and more novocaine, or else I start feeling it. Once in the middle of a procedure, I went to the bathroom and took a Vicodin from my purse because what they were giving me was not doing the job. Ahh, sweet relief. On the other hand, Vicodin doesn’t really make me high. I usually have it around because I’ve had killer abscess toothaches that made me want to commit suicidee. I almost never use it except for something major like that. I used it post- some other surgery awhile ago. Confession: However, during a difficult period last year, I used it a few times to try to feel better about life. I took one, and totally forgot I took it. I did it again a few days later. Nothing. I could do everything, act normally, work out, whatever, and never felt anything except maybe a mild and short-lived pleasantness. Once I took two and then I did fall asleep soon after. Now I’m through the difficult period and it’s all fine and I never tried anything else. I need at least three ibuprofen to touch a headache. I’m height/weight proportional. Isn’t that weird? Is anyone else like this? Maybe not with the alcohol, but with the horse-like ability to metabolize other meds? If I went in for surgery, would they think *I * was an alcoholic?
You know, my college roomate was like that. She was an intermediate drunk - no different than anybody else, but when it came to novocaine or anything like that she had major problems. She didn’t go to the dentist for years because of a bad experience relating to it.
I’m have had similar experiences. I get very tipsy off a pint of beer, and I didn’t drink for a long time because it was just too easy to go from sober to sick without realizing it, after only 3 drinks! Now I have the occasional beer in a bottle but I usually drink slowly and stop after one drink. I’d rather not get ill off beer.
My experiences with the dentist are the same too. I’m pretty hard to numb up, and I’ve had dentists just not believe me in the past. These are the types that give me the normal amount and then start drilling–only to have me screaming in pain at them to give me more. Only after I yelp do they try using more novacaine. This is where my terror of dentistry came from. I really wish more dentists would just trust that by now I know my mouth and what it can and can’t handle. I’m not a wimp, there are thousands of people out there like me who are tough to numb. Just believe me the first time and I would actually come back to see you again!
Cool, I’m glad to know I’m not the only one. The last few times I’ve gone to the dentist, they have believed me, which is nice. But yeah, I would think they would believe us…I mean, novocaine doesn’t get you high,…that I’ve noticed…
I’m the opposite. I can outdrink almost anybody–the exception being that if I’m drinking beer, I get pretty buzzed after only one, but since I’m not too wild about beer that’s rarely an issue. But most medications, particularly pain medication, affects me a lot more strongly than it does others. (This was good news in my days of recreational drugging, long ago.)
When I woke up from surgery I was on a morphine drip. The nurse asked if I was in pain. I croaked yes. She increased the morphine.
She did this three more times.
The fourth and final time, I finally felt some relief…actually it was like being engulfed in a gentle wave of warm water, starting at my toes and ending at my scalp, feeling all fuzzy and lovely and pain-free…
And then the oxygen monitor on my finger began going “BEEP BEEP BEEP” and the nurse ran over and shoved my oxygen mask tightly onto my face and said “I NEED YOU TO BREATHE.” I felt like I was underwater at that point; I hated her for disturbing my lovely drift into nothingness. Finally I’m in no pain, right before I drop into unconsciousness, and you’re yelling at me to wake up and breathe?
From what I’ve been told by doctors later on (drunk ones, at my bar, with zero liability) the oxygen monitor on your finger is like the oil idiot-light on your car. It isn’t particularly sensitive; if it lights up/goes off, something is seriously wrong and the system (yours or your car’s, depending on the circumstance) is about to break down.
So apparently I have a high morphine tolerance. I didn’t feel any effects til I was about to OD on it.
I also have a high alcohol tolerance, even when I was a very occasional drinker.
So you tell me! I guess I’m neither a cheap drunk nor a cheap high.
I’ve got a low tolerance for alcohol myself (more so as I’ve aged and, er, expanded a bit, but still sometimes feel tipsy from one glass of wine). I’ve never thrown up, however (nor been hung over); I guess the inability to imbibe more than 2 drinks in a short time without becoming obnoxiously giggly prevents that.
Yet to numb my teeth, they have to give me enough novocaine to stagger a horse. Usually in multiple locations. Took 4 shots to get my tooth numb enough last week to place a crown (not the drillwork, just the removal of the temp cap, cleaning off of cement, and installing the permanent crown. This explains why I’ve got a nearly-pathological fear of dentists, and why I continue to see the current one despite her being out-of-network and $$$ - she makes damn sure things are numb (including offering nitrous and conscious sedation).
Two epidurals for 2 kids, and neither one worked.
However, a narcotic pain pill will usually make me a bit woozy.
So - systemic stuff, low tolerance. Local stuff: very resistant.
same here… so if I’m in a lot of pain I’ll take a shot or two of tequila or some of the SO’s good stuff. That doesnt happen often, and it’s why I dont drink much.
I had a great dentist in Nebraska who was able to numb me up perfectly & in half the shots of the prev dentist. He was so good that I didnt even need to take pain meds (or alcohol) after having my wisdom teeth out or a couple of root canals… I even surprised people by returning to work right after! He was the BEST.
I’m not a particularly cheap drunk. (Irish family, considerable practice. =D) With medications it seems to vary with the family of drugs. I had .5mg of Xanax once and it quite literally did nothing – I might as well have tried to treat insomnia with a sugar pill. On the other hand, I tried taking a couple of Benadryl the next night and they knock me out like a sledgehammer to the head. I have to be very careful taking Sudafed – the real stuff with pseudoephedrine, not the pansy PE stuff they’ll let you buy without nine forms of ID and your legally-binding signature in blood – because half of the recommended dose will make me jittery for hours.
I also had Audrey’s experience with Vicodin. A sympathetic dentist gave me a big ol’ bottle when I had an abscessed tooth, and their main effect was to make me itch. Then he gave me a big ol’ bottle of Percocet in case I was just reacting weird to Vicodin, and they didn’t do anything either. My mother swore by Tylenol-3 and Vicodin when she was under treatment for massive kidney stones a few years ago, and I just don’t get it. I’ve never taken anything that’s cross-tolerant with any kind of narcotics, and prior to the toothache the last time I had any opioid of any kind was when I greenstick-fractured my arm at age 5, and the ER staff gave me Demerol so they could set it without me passing out.
Mercifully, locals in the -caine family do seem to work on me – the benzocaine gels for canker sores work, and procaine injections numb me adequately for fillings.
I guess I’m neither a cheap drunk nor a cheap high.