Maintain Hydration!

Please! I best serve as an example of what not to do in life so here's my story. For the last few days, I have been feeling dizzy and lightheaded with the expectation of falling over at any time. Finally figured out that I was dehydrated. Duh! Drinking 1 liter of water over the course of a couple of hours did the trick and served as a reminder. This weather is both hot and dry so it's important to hydrate more than ever. And my pulse also dropped so if you're checking your BP regularly and notice your pulse creeping up, pay attention!

You might want to take electrolyte pills

Yes, I got the same suggestion on TOB. Just picked up some Electrolife ZERO from Oxxo... no calories, no sugar, no preservatives. They only had Grape and Strawberry/Kiwi at the one I stopped into but, hey, beggars can't be choosers.

I cannot remember if ever a doctor has asked me if I am drinking enough water daily. Despite all of the symptoms of dehydration.

Every year we would get a few older patients into the hospital with dehydration.  Sometimes that’s all it is but sometimes the dehydration exacerbates a hidden preexisting problem like coronary artery disease which then leads to further workups. Heart valvular problems also get worse. If it’s a young person you have to check for diabetes. High sugars make patients pee a lot.

ferret wrote: Just picked up some Electrolife ZERO from Oxxo... no calories, no sugar, no preservatives. They only had Grape  and Strawberry/Kiwi at the one I stopped into but, hey, beggars can't be choosers.

I find all the flavors pretty disgusting apart from the Coco, which I quite like.

I really have to remind and force myself to drink water, as I am hardly ever thirsty.

Back when my daughters were infants, I had a really cool little book called "Nature's Children" by Juliette Levy. She was an herbalist and had studied how various so-called primitive cultures around the world dealt with babies. She had lived with tribes in the Amazon, Bedouins in the Middle East, in African villages.

One thing she mentioned, that I had never seen talked about in any of the other baby care books is that babies need water in hot weather, just like we do. They can't tell you they're thirsty, so when they cry, moms tend to give them milk, especially those who breastfeed on demand, as I did.

But milk, while liquid, is food, and the baby may be being overfed (which also leads them to cry and spit up). She said not to forget to give babies a bottle of water (sterilized of course for real infants) to drink in the hot months, and I did that.

My oldest daughter has always been a big water drinker. When she was a child, there wasn't this selection of reusable water bottles around, so I took an empty mickey bottle, made a canvas cover for it with a shoulder strap which she carried around with her, otherwise I was always having to find somewhere to get her water when we were out.

When we'd go visit friends, she'd ask for a glass of water, and they'd say, "Oh, I have milk and juice if you'd like some, honey". She'd answer, "No, water please".

I know a couple other people who say they hate water, which I don't quite understand- it's so benign, it tastes like nothing. I just don't drink much water because I'm almost never thirsty, so it doesn't occur to me.

Tea and coffee definitely count as drinking water, even though people like to say it doesn't because caffeine is diuretic. But the science is that unless you consume huge amounts of those beverages, the diuretic effect is less than the hydration effect. And in regular consumers of tea or coffee there is a caffeine tolerance that develops that lessens the diuretic effect compared to people who only drink them occasionally.