Last week, my wife and I went out for a celebratory dinner, and at this dinner, I had two alcoholic beverages that were prepared with a liberal amount of simple syrup. It was almost too sweet for me, but I figured, “What the heck; it’s a celebration!” and I drank them. Both. And then came dessert. Chocolate torte. It was DELICIOUS, but I knew I was going to have trouble afterward. Boy, was I right.

I went to sleep around 9:30 p.m. and woke up around 1:40 a.m. My body felt hot, and my heart was racing. I couldn’t sleep because I felt like I was too heated up. I tossed and turned for a few hours before I was finally able to fall asleep again. To add weird insult to injury, when I woke up the next morning for work, I felt pretty wiped out (due to the lack of sleep, I’m sure) and I had rashes all over my body. Was this due to the sugar intake? I don’t know and I can’t really say, but it really was the only thing that I had different from all my other normal meals. Everything else on the menu for dinner was pretty normal and keto or Paleo friendly, so I can’t see where else this rash could have come from.

If this is what’s going to happen to me from now on when I have too much sugar, it’s yet another good reason for me to avoid it. I also felt groggier and foggier the next day for hours, and I’m sure the headache I experienced was in no small part due to the two drinks I had.