About those headaches

On Saturday, 9/16, I suffered from a headache that would have killed a lesser man. It was really brutal. Throbbing and unrelenting, it left me nauseous.

I stopped to pick up a lottery ticket and decided, since it was an unseasonably hot day and I required quenching, to also buy a Mike's Hard Lemonade. The bottle was cute, and what better way to celebrate one of the last days of summer? Also, since I would be enjoying it while waiting at the bus stop, I was happy to settle on an alcoholic beverage that the local cops would not recognize.

I noticed that the booze wasn't affecting me at all. Nada. Zip. Zilch. No buzz at all, even in the sun. Oh, well, I thought, it's not like it was a Grey Goose Cosmo and you get what you pay for. Then, when I reached my destination (Carson, Pirie, Scott), it hit me. It started like a little caffeine headache and suddenly grew up to be ... OW, OW, OW! I had to go home and get in bed, where I stayed for hours.

This had happened to me once before. Recently. While I was out of town, preparing for a client presentation. We went to dinner (Outback Steakhouse) and I had a frozen drink and the very same thing happened. I didn't feel it and in no time I was sick with a headache that lasted hours and nearly compromised my performance the next morning.

The common denominator of both instances was booze. While I had enjoyed beers and mixed drinks between the headaches, these two incidents left me afraid to drink.

While I was in Los Angeles, I relived all this for my best friend, who was so sad at the thought of me having to give up my "ini's." So together we carefully examined my alcoholic history between the two headaches.

Frozen Kiwi Lemonade -- vodka, kiwi, strawberries and lemonade mix -- HEADACHE!
Light beer -- a malt beverage -- No headache
Cosmo -- voda, triple sec, cranberry and lime juice -- No headache
Rumba -- Rum and ... other stuff -- No headache
Mike's Hard Lemonade -- Malt liquor and lemonade -- HEADACHE! KILL ME NOW! HEADACHE!

Ding ding ding! We have stumbled upon something here. All the while I was concerned about the liquor content, when in reality I'm having a severe bitch of a reaction to, of all things, LEMONADE! Go figure! It sure looks benign, fun and All-American, doesn't it? Well, I'm telling you, lemonade is a formidable foe that actually incapacitated me.

Shocking, huh? I suppose it shouldn't be. After all, we're living in a world where spinach kills.

http://onegalsmusings.blogspot.com/2006/09/oh-but-it-hurt.html