The husband of a friend was an alcoholic and had to have an operation. He had the DTs while in surgury and died from it. (That’s what his wife told me.)
Would any of you care to address this?
I don’t know the biomechanics of it, but safe alcohol consumption varies from person to person.
From nhs.uk:
Sensible drinking guide
• Three to four units a day for men.
• Two to three units a day for women.
• No alcohol for 48 hours after a heavy session.
• No alcohol for women trying to conceive.
• One to two units twice a week for pregnant women.
A unit is 1/2 a glass of wine (250ml I think), 1/2 a pint of beer, or 1 measure (25ml) of high-proof alcohol, but that depends on the alcohol content. Some high-alcohol % beers run 3 units to the pint.
These are averages, so not sure how the maths differ for binges, but if your friend keeps a drinks diary she may be surprised that the ‘2-3 weeks’ between binges is actually more like 1-2 days if even that and that her between binges drinking is actually close to the average.
More info here: http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/alcohol/Pages/Socialdrinking.aspx
Sure. Alcohol withdrawal is frequently fatal, so such an outcome is not surprising, especially if the treating health professionals didn’t know he was physiologically addicted to alcohol.
Sadly, it’s not uncommon, given how active alcoholics minimize and under-report their drinking, even when it’s vitally important for them to be honest.
They could tell my husband was a smoker because he got up almost immediately after surgery, made for the smoking lounge (this was some years ago), and passed out in there.
Fortunately, he quit smoking a few years back.
[hijack]
Really? (Hyperbole aside, I mean.) Why?
Smoking is an independent and dose-related risk factor for wound complications, including slow healing, infection, and dehiscence (the wound splitting open). Nicotine is a vasoconstrictor, which leads to less bloodflow to the wound edges, with less delivery of oxygen and nutrients. The myriad other chemicals in cigarette smoke also have particular unhelpful effects on the mobility of white blood cells, the ability of platelets to function normally, the laying down of new scar tissue, etc., etc.
ZOE, I have doubts about someone dying of DTs while under anesthesia. DTs rarely commence until about 72 hours after the last drink and the drugs used to induce anesthesia would suppress alcohol withdrawal. Also, the anesthesiologist is continually monitoring vital signs which become dramatic in alcohol withdrawal. I doubt it would be missed.
That said, advanced alcoholism could cause surgical death in other ways. The most likely would be uncontrollable bleeding caused by clotting abnormalities in drinkers and/or ruptured varicose veins in the GI tract from liver disease. A surgeon might describe this as dying from DTs to avoid legal problems form families who think he should have controlled the bleeding (likely impossible.)