chronic-illness-support:

grimdarkthroes:

equalityformost:

grimdarkthroes:

as ur friendly Neighborhood Nursing Student™ i feel somewhat compelled to remind everyone with the hot weather:

1. every liquid except sea water and alcohol hydrates you. It’s not CHUG WATER OR DIE. in fact, gatorade and the like are designed to hydrate you efficiently.
   
2. yeah, this includes coffee and tea and soda. the diuretic is not enough to cancel out the liquid. juices and milk have solids in them, sure, but they’re also mostly liquid! it counts. 
   
3. your body can only absorb so much water at a time, so chugging 64 oz of water at noon and calling it good will do a wonderful job of flushing your kidneys, but not so much of hydrating your tissues. it’s more important that you’re getting consistent fluid throughout the day. 
   
4. there’s a lot of fancy ways to determine How Much Water (Liquid) I Should Drink but honestly? 8 oz (1 cup) every other hour on cool days and 8 oz every hour on hot days should be fine (assuming you sleep for a normal amount of time per day…. i’m assuming ur awake 16 hours a day.)
5. figure out how many oz each of ur favorite cups is. it’ll help your guesstimation. 
6. if ur urine is darker than light yellow, you’re dehydrated. 
7. if u pinch the skin on the back of ur hand for a couple seconds and it takes more than a second or two go to back to normal then ur dehydrated. 

In regards to #1, don’t take this as an excuse to drink the sugar water that they call sports drinks. They aren’t bad for you per se, but please choose water.

actually this entire post was written in the spirit of ppl using it as an excuse to drink sports drinks and soda etc

ppl have been commenting abt sodium levels in soda and sugar levels in sports drinks and thats all well and good but what i’ve noticed is that people who internalize “well, ONLY WATER hydrates me” but who HATE WATER remain horrifically dehydrated cause they dont drink anything. 

so like. if ur a person who haaaaates tap water, this is absolutely me giving you permission to drink whatever fluid you can stomach. please take this as a direct excuse to drink nothing but gatorade if that’s what it takes to get enough fluid into ur body.

it’s not the healthiest for you, sure, but you’re a smart enough person to know that. please drink fluids anyways. 

if u like water thats gr8. if you can stomach water that’s gr8. if you can’t, that’s okay too, and you need to stay hydrated just as much as anyone else, so please drink. 

reblogging because it’s so common for chronically ill people (especially us with chronic nausea) to have trouble drinking enough water - drinking stuff with sodium is great for those of us with POTS or adrenal insufficiency, and sugar helps with nausea. I always dehydrate quickly if I don’t keep juice, sodas, and popsicles around.

oh, and one more note: if you get nauseated drinking tap water but not bottled drinks, you may be allergic or sensitive to something in tap water. I’m mildly allergic to fluoride, so I drink (and cook with) Crystal Geyser brand water, which is fluoride-free.