Expert: Dr. Ravindra Bhaskar Ghooi - 8/28/2007

Question
I was given a breathalyzer by an officer and my results were 0.08.  Now, I had one beer about 1 hour before, but I do inhalers for a mass on my right lung.  That evening I had done a puff of Advair then about 20 minutes later 2 puffs of Albutrol.  I was no way impaired!  Could this have affected my results.  I need to find out why my results was an 0.08, when I know for a fact that I had not drink that much.  Please help me.

Answer
Hi LaDonna,
There is a relation between the amount of alcohol consumed and the level detected in blodd, and this is in turn related to acohol detected in breath. However there are factors which modify the relation, these include:
1. Body weight: People with lower body weight will show higher acohol content for the same amount consumed than people with higher body weight.
2. Sex: Women will have higher levels than men on equal consumption.
3. Food consumption: Consumption of food reduces the alcohol found in the blood and breath.
None the less one beer appears to be too low to produce a result of 0.08. Now this could be due to faulty meters, or wrong breaathing technique (I understand that there are ways to beat the test by usng shallow breaths)But let me confess I have no practical experience, since I have never been tested, and testing has just begun in our country and we have not had a look at any results.
Sorry my experience is too limited to help you more.
Ravi Ghooi