Originally Posted by
BrendaChenowyth 
When you're admitted for withdrawal syndrome, they take your blood and look for levels of all these things.. and I don't even know all of them, you can also be anemic and immunosuppressed, low red and white blood cells.. I mean severe chronic alcohol use can mess up EVERYTHING. They will prescribe a plethora of things, some you'll get each morning based on your blood levels, and some are on hand in case of an increase in symptoms, like you have a seizure.. nurses continually assess the severity of your symptoms and chart it on a scale that determines what if any meds to give. (I can't wait to get back to nursing school, I love this stuff lol)
Point is, doctors can anticipate how bad your withdrawal will be and keep you from dying. Yeah, I said it. Not everyone will have a little bit of fatigue and shaking. I think if you have ever tried to quit cold turkey and the symptoms were so overwhelming you reached for alcohol, that's a good indication that some medical help might be a good way to go. It can't hurt.
It's pretty staggering that the dangers of alcohol withdrawal are not widely known especially considering that the fatality rate in withdraw seizures is estimated at 5% to 25%.
I have no idea what meds I was given when I was in hospital for it but I was hooked up with tubes for a few days.
My memory may be playing tricks on me but I swear one part of it had to do with potassium.
And there's all the essential vitamins you miss out on if you've been drinking heavily for a long time.
I don't know about anyone else, but when I was drinking heavily I'd regularly go three or four days without eating anything.