Coronavirus patients develop aversion to alcohol

Of course, COVID-19 carries with it a whole train of serious consequences, against the background of which aversion to alcohol looks like some kind of nonsense. And yet, the number of patient reports about such a reaction of the organism in the “postcovid” is growing like a snowball.

“Now I don’t perceive alcohol at all. None. Alcoholic drink was the indicator by which I knew for sure that I had“ the same. ”It was crap.

Then one day she stopped smelling. And immediately a crazy thought came to my mind: “I wonder how it is to drink strong, when there is no taste or smell?” And immediately, as I thought, the body almost jumped straight away from the bottle. I was already taken aback. Well, I think I’ll get better – and then! I got better. But the body does not want to, it turns away itself. No, I was not addicted, did not suffer from alcoholism. But I drank. And then suddenly “don’t” – that’s all. And how to celebrate the New Year now? “- writes Pavel in the group” Atypical postcovid “on Facebook.

And he is not alone. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of people who have received a new syndrome of complete alcohol aversion after an illness. Many, along with alcohol, turned away from coffee, and others – from chocolate. “Even the smell of alcohol now I can not stand, as, indeed, and coffee,” – says Tatiana. “Even any thoughts about alcohol make me feel nauseous and shiver,” Ivan wonders. “After covid, the very sight of a chocolate causes a persistent gag reflex,” notes Anastasia, a chocolate lover in the dock era.

“It’s been over two months for me, but coffee and alcohol are still out of favor,” Marina worries.

“After 2.5 months, coffee and alcohol still“ don’t come in. ”The coffee smells unpleasantly fumes, alcohol is disgusting. Last week I literally tried a sip of champagne at work, barely got home, stirring up the beginning, wow,” Maxim admits.

“After the coronavirus, I became allergic to alcohol. A glass of beer – and immediately my face is red and my lips are swollen. Although I have never been allergic before.” “I used to love wine and drank it often. But now I don’t even understand how I could? Now beer is a mineral water with alcohol, all wine is tasteless swill,” Vladislava is surprised

Some of the patients report that alcohol aversion lasted three months, some that more than six months. “This is a new method of treating alcoholism, it must be patented!” – the patients joke sadly.

And, if we continue the topic of giving up bad habits, then there are messages from people who quit smoking after a new illness. “A roommate in the ward against the background of a coronavirus had a microstroke, partially lost sight and memory. But here’s an interesting fact: she forgot that she smokes,” says a Muscovite Irina. “I turned away from alcohol and from smoking, – says Maxim. – Three months have passed – I don’t pull. That is, I can hold on to a glass, a cigarette, but after a while I start to feel sick.”

Those who, against the background of such rejection, nevertheless decide to drink, face very strange consequences. “We had a holiday, I drank an incomplete glass, and then immediately threw up. It was bad for four days, a terrible hangover followed, with panic attacks, I didn’t even know before that this happens,” says Anna.

A strong man Andrey notes that a few months after his illness he barely drank 0.33 liters of beer – together with his wife: “The next morning my head ached, I was in a state of illness, weakness, etc. I decided that the beer was burnt. But then I realized that the body began to react to alcohol that way. ”

Before her illness, Margarita drank only on holidays, and little by little. After COVID-19, the reaction to alcohol became strange: “I decided to take a sip of wine at dinner, so my left hand was pulled until the morning, my left shoulder twisted all night. My heart beat like crazy.” “For the first time in my life there was a severe three-day hangover, and with a small dose,” Elena shares her experience. “I drank a glass of wine. Result: vomiting, diarrhea, tachycardia, weakness, headache.

Evgenia says that the alcohol not only lost its taste, but also stopped working: “For the sake of interest, I drank a tincture of 40 degrees. There was no feeling of hops at all. Even though I had enough to sniff the cork before. But now I have the impression that you are drinking water.”

The patients themselves make different assumptions about why they have such reactions. Someone thinks that the virus has deprived the necessary enzymes for the breakdown of alcohol, and someone else – that the receptors in the brain that respond to the production of dopamine have suffered.

The well-known doctor, chairman of the board of the Moscow City Scientific Society of Physicians, Professor Pavel Vorobyov, who today is actively engaged in post-covid disease, notes that this is not the most serious consequence of the new coronavirus infection: “But during the illness, the brain is damaged, this leads to the fact that a person changes a lot of reactions, including the attitude to pleasures. Many describe a decrease in libido, sexual functions. I can not say about dopamine receptors, this requires checks, but the fact that such symptoms are present in people is a fact. But we have enough and other problems with the postcovid, for example, with serious mental disorders in a number of patients. “

As the well-known expert in toxicology and pharmacology, pathologist Alexander Ediger jokes, COVID-19 fulfilled the age-old dream of progressive mankind, especially doctors, to change addictive behavior or craving for alcohol, coffee and tea (drinks containing caffeine): three target organs are known that reflect the most pronounced and lasting consequences of the COVID-19 disease: the central nervous system, liver and pancreas.And if the perception of alcohol, coffee, tea, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves has changed, this is a rather serious damage to the nervous system, and in the case of alcohol – also extremely complex lesions of the liver and pancreas, especially if after drinking alcohol for several days the state of not digesting and disintegrating alcohol, and sometimes intolerance of its smell, persists.

This is a very bad sign, indicating that the most powerful enzyme systems of the liver and pancreas have stopped working, which means that the patient will have to be monitored for a long time. We observe how the disease takes away individual organs: someone is affected by the central nervous system, someone has immunodeficiency, someone has thromboembolism. And we still have a long time to disentangle the consequences of COVID-19. “

– .