During a consultation, your doctor will use various techniques in his assesment of the symptom: Alcohol use. These may include a physical examination or other medical tests. Your doctor may ask several questions when assessing your condition. It is important to remember that your consultation is a two-way process and any extra information you can share with your doctor may help them with their diagnosis.
Some of the questions your doctor may ask are listed below:
Why: document age started drinking, type of alcohol preferred, daily alcohol consumption, days per week alcohol is consumed.
Why: This is a solid starting point for you health professional to begin from in assessing your alcohol use. How much alcohol you use assists in assessing whether you abuse alcohol or have (or are at risk of) alcohol dependence. The type of alcohol can be important as different common alcoholic drinks have different concentrations of alcohol, plus some types of alcohol have been shown in moderation to have health benefits. It is vitally important that you are honest when answering these questions.
Why: Some medications have the ability to increase or decrease the effects of alcohol.
Why: Liver disease can impair your body's ability to appropriately metabolize and handle alcohol as well as the potentially toxic substance which is digested to form.
Sometimes, other symptoms may be present and may help your doctor analyse your condition. These may include:
Why: e.g. tremor, hallucinations, delirium tremens.
Why: due to effect of alcohol itself, insomnia associated with alcohol or due to anemia.
Why: suggesting possible pancreatitis, alcoholic hepatitis, gastritis, reflux oesophagitis, peptic ulcers.
Why: due to alcohol, fatty stools from alcoholic pancreatitis.
Why: e.g. arrhythmias, congestive cardiac failure.
Why: suggestive of possible alcoholic dementia or pellagra.
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