Hungry Walker
Dear Doc,
After a recent trip we stopped for something to eat on the way home. After eating a whole family size pizza and drinking a few beers I felt light-headed and nearly fainted. I felt like throwing up but didn’t. I went outside and after lying down for a few minutes I made a total recovery. Doc, I don’t understand, I have a big appetite and this has never happened before, what do think the problem is?
“Big Eater” Monbulkish

Dear BE,
Although I’m not that sort of doctor, I will attempt to answer your question as best as I can. I’ll bet that the walk you were on was a pretty hard one and you rushed from the end of it straight to the pizza shop. This has happened to me too on many occasions. I recall one memorable situation in the French Alps, I had just returned to Chamonix after a bit of an epic on a glacier. Feeling famished and being too tight to eat at a cafe, I whipped into the supermarket and grabbed the cheapest bread and cheese and the biggest bar of chocolate I could find. After eating it all I ended up lying on the ground feeling slightly unwell. But I digress. You see, when you suddenly stop after vigorous exercise without cooling down properly your blood can pool in your legs; this combined with a low blood sugar level, maybe a little dehydration and then all that food and alcohol down there in the stomach and the blood can drain from the brain. Whammo, your brain then shuts down the body to protect itself. Remember that alcohol seriously affects the mechanism that controls blood sugar. I have found that lying down for a few minutes helps the blood to go back to the brain and a quick recovery can then be made.
Dr T

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