A woman who took herself to hospital seven times feeling like she was drunk was eventually diagnosed with a rare condition.
Despite being tee-total, doctors could smell alcohol on the 50-year-old’s breath and assumed she was just drunk. But medics eventually realised she had a rare condition where fungi in her gut were brewing their own booze.
Fewer than 100 cases of the condition, called auto-brewery syndrome, have been reported since its discovery in the late 1940s.
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The strange condition occurs when bacteria and fungus in the gastrointestinal tract turn carbohydrates in everyday food into ethanol.
(Image: Getty Images)
A new report of the case in the Canadian Medical Association Journal said the woman, who stopped drinking because of her religious beliefs, kept taking herself to the emergency room complaining of excessive sleepiness and slurred speech. Her appetite disappeared and she was also falling asleep while getting ready for work or preparing food. She was unable to work because she was so drowsy.
However, “in recent years, she had stopped drinking altogether because of her religious beliefs,” doctors wrote. Her family also confirmed she didn’t drink.
Her symptoms would get better after two weeks, but would return every one to two months. During each visit doctors diagnosed her with alcohol intoxication. She even had elevated blood alcohol levels.
She was also assessed several times by psychiatrists in the ER for signs of alcohol use disorder – but none of these found signs of addiction.
(Image: Getty Images/Science Photo Library RF)
On the third visit, the mother was even certificated under the Mental Health Act, as the doctor was concerned when she discharged herself before a psychiatric assessment. On the seventh visit doctors discovered the woman had been treated for number of urinary tract infections, which she was prescribed frequent courses of antibiotics for.
It is believed the heavy doses of antibiotics wiped out the good bacteria in her gut – which led to fungi taking over. She was started on a course of antifungal medication and placed on a low-carb diet to deprive the fungi of sugar to ferment.
After a month the woman’s symptoms went away and after four months she slowly started to eat carbohydrates again. However the condition flared up and she had to restart the low-carb diet again.
Writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dr Rahel Zewude, University of Toronto, and her co-authors, said: “Auto-brewery syndrome carries substantial social, legal, and medical consequences for patients and their loved ones. Our patient had several (emergency department) visits, was assessed by internists and psychiatrists, and was certified under the Mental Health Act before receiving a diagnosis of auto-brewery syndrome, reinforcing how awareness of this syndrome is essential for clinical diagnosis and management.”
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