Alcohol withdrawal

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Mild-to-moderate psychological symptoms:

• Jumpiness or nervousness
• Shakiness
• Anxiety
• Irritability or easy excitability
• Rapid emotional changes
• Depression
• Fatigue
• Difficulty thinking clearly
• Bad dreams

Mild-to-moderate physical symptoms:

• Headache -- general, pulsating
• Sweating -- especially the palms of the hands or the face
• Nausea and vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Insomnia (sleeping difficulty)
• Pallor
• Rapid heart rate
• Eye pupils enlarged(dilated pupils)
• Clammy skin
• Tremor of the hands
• Involuntary, abnormal movements of the eyelids

Severe symptoms:

• Delirium tremens -- a state of confusion and visual hallucinations
• Agitation
• Fever
• Convulsions
• Black outs -- when the person forgets what happened during the drinking episode

The health care provider will check for:

• Rapid heartbeat (tachycardia)
• Rapid breathing (tachypnea)
• Elevated temperature
• Abnormal eye movements
• Shaky hands
• General body shaking
• Abnormal heart rhythms
• Internal bleeding
• Liver failure
• Dehydration

A toxicology screen may be performed as well as other blood tests.

Review Date: 06/03/2005
Reviewed By: Thomas A. Owens, M.D., Departments of Internal Medicine and Pediatrics, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.