How long does alcohol stay in our systems post-op?
Have seen several stories on here of people getting DUIs because they feel ok ... You should work on the premise that you are exactly the same as anyone else - the average liver can only process at a rate of 1 unit per hour. One unit is a half pint of beer or a very small glass of wine ...
Personally, I don't EVER drive after having one drink - it's not worth putting myself or other people in danger!
Proud Feminist, Atheist, LGBT friend, and Democratic Socialist
As someone who lost a loved one to a drunk driver who was so $#&@(£% intoxicated that he came all the way across a wide grassy median to the opposite side of the highway, I wanted to express my appreciation for you (and everyone else) who doesn't drive after drinking. (The drunk driver, of course, escaped with only minor injuries.)
I personally think the stories I have seen here from people who said they felt fine but got DUIs are folks who -- like most people who drink regularly -- simply have poor judgment about how impaired they are simply because they HAVE been drinking. My brother and some of his friends (who are in their 40s!) do it all the time... Say they are fine to drive when they have no business driving and would undoubtedly blow over the limit if pulled over.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
The only difference is that since the alcohol goes straight to our small intestine (rather than sitting in the stomach for a bit and having to travel through the part of the intestine that we have bypassed), we absorb the alcohol much more quickly. The effect, however, "wears off" quickly as the alcohol gets "distributed" throughout the bloodstream (simplified version of the process). So you might feel a little lightheaded 5 minutes after a shot, but 20 minutes later you will feel the same as you would above felt 25 minutes after a shot when you had your natural digestive system.
We do NOT end up with a higher blood alcohol content after RNY than we would have ended up with from the same amount of alcohol pre-op. We just feel it more initially.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.
An extra 30 minutes for the blood alcohol level to drop all the way back to zero isn't especially significant (especially in a study with only 36 participants). What would be much more relevant would be the amount of time it takes to drop well below the legal blood alcohol limit (with a much larger study cohort).
Better to be safe than sorry, of course.
Lora
14 years out; 190 pounds lost, 165 pound loss maintained
You don't drown by falling in the water. You drown by staying there.