HYDRATE

allen levine

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new york city burbs
I just want to warn all you weekend warriors who are braving the 100 degrees and humidity, do not think for a second skipping some water breaks are ok.
Dont forget to take some cooling off time and keep drinking water.

I got 3 hours of shop time in this morning, managed to get all the spanish cedar for 2 chairs planed down and sized to length and width. Kept the air on, and alot of h2o
 
I dehydrated severely in '77 in Oklahoma. I was admitted with severe dehydration and double pneumonia. Dr talked with my dad and told him to bring a casket with him to OK. I had arteries that were collapsed. It has been with me every hot day of my life. I overheated Wed. Spent a couple hours in the bathtub soaking cool water and drinking gatorade. Still feeling it today. Been watering and feeding livestock early mornings and late evenings. Been on survival mode for the past week. Lou Ann says we are putting in central air in the near future. Be careful all, it is nothing to play around with.
 
Started a deck rebuilding project early last week. It's been "on hold" for the past three days. When it gets up to 90° by mid morning, I just stay in the house. I haven't done any outdoor stuff all week. The deck materials were delivered Tuesday, and I haven't even cut the bands on the pallet yet.

Supposed to cool off next week, mid-week. Maybe then...
 
Well, We aren't going to get the same humidity as the rest of you, but it will be up around 100 today. Just got done spending about 3.5 hours working in the garden. Still have a bunch more todo, but I think I'll wait until tomorrow to tackle the rest of it. Should be able to be ok in the shop with a fan going in the shade for a few hours. Then it's time to lounge in the hillbilly cool tub with a cool drink.
 
In Arizona it is a way of life every where you go folks offer you a bottle of water I drink easily a gallon per day as does LOML. I suffer heat stroke in California once while doing a job out in Victorville. I was actually unconscious for 2 day and it took over a month to get right, to this day heat effect me so please stay hydrated.
 
The dry heat would get me with how quickly water evaporates. Not having to changing shirts a couple or three times a day, I wouldn't have any way to gauge water loss. I was at the Grand Canyon several years ago and got dehydrated because I didn't realize how much I had been sweating, so I didn't drink enough. When I busy I can easily go through a gallon of water. Like a lot of people this past week I've been staying in the house.
 
I, too, have been hospitalized with heat exhaustion - twice. It hits 90-95º and I head for air conditioning. Each exposure makes one more sensitive. Your body chemistry gets really whacked out when you get dehydrated. Nothing to mess with.

And a word about water. Like Don, here in the southwest we rarely venture forth without a water bottle in hand and they are readily offered wherever we go. Kidney stones are a part of my family history. Dehydration is really hard on kidneys. Kidneys need clean, clear water to function properly. Not coffee, Coke, Gatorade, etc. Water - clean clear pure water. I had to learn to drink it. It begins with accepting you have to and then finding a way. Kidney stones are no fun.

Dialysis is even less so and it is a slow and ugly path to death. There is no reversal once you are on dialysis. Quality of life descends like dropping of a cliff. Nothing to mess with, especially when the solution is easy, affordable and available. Learn to drink water. You need it to flush out the coffee, Coke, Gatorade, etc. The kidneys have to filter that stuff out before they can filter your blood. Don't rely on them for re-hydration.

Yep, soapbox. But I have been there twice and I have watched two people die having suffered through dialysis. One a very good friend and another a delightful parishioner, both of whom died way too soon.

Rant off, but easily re-ignited.
 
Yep, word on the flip side, just as bad as not staying hydrated is Water Poisoning. I suffered a mild case in the 90's when I was working outside in AZ all day, didn't eat anything all day but drank about 2.5g of water. Balance in everything :D
 
I've easily drank 1 1/2 gallons of water today (just water) and have yet to, well, there's no real polite way to put it, but to expel any water in any way except sweating. It's about 95 now and I've been gardening and burying drip irrigation lines so the rabbits won't eat them. The trees need to drink, or else I wouldn't be out there. But That's it for the day. Time to head for the pool. There's always tomorrow morning for the rest of it.
 
Good advice Allen. The only thing for me is i hate water.I no I no i should drink it any way but it makes me sick.

I had to learn to drink it. It begins with accepting you have to and then finding a way.

Carol's nailed it, Stephen.

It takes time, but you can learn. Worked for LOML -- she used to be a huge juice drinker when we were courting, and now has moved to being primarily a water drinker. (we've been married 21 years, but it didn't take that long! ;) )
 
When I am hot, I also cannot drink water. It is the easiest way to make me vomit. So in the mornings and evenings I try to drink cold water. But during the day when working, Gatorade quenches my thirst without making me sick.
 
I just typed a rather long post on hydration. I guess I did not "Post Quick Reply" it. I hope the FWW gurus can find it and stick it in. It is time for me to start count down for bed. However, here is a very brief summary.

Water intake should be according to this formula: Body weight in pounds, divided by two equals the number of ounces of water you should drink each normal day. If you are out in the hot sun, it should be more. Example: Person weighs 200 pounds. 200/2 = 100. This person should drink 100 oz water per day.

Excess caffeine will dehydrate you; it is a diuretic.
Excess sugars will dehydrate you; they affect body fluid viscosity.

This was all spelled out in detail, along with examples in the missing post.

Sorry,

JimB
 
I cannot always drink cold water, too. Sometimes tepid works better. I also think there is a difference between quenching one's thirst and re-hydrating. Two different purposes.

I got conversant on all this stuff while lying in the hospital hooked up to multiple IV's while trying to dissolve/pass a kidney stone. I asked my urologist for some reading material concerning my predicament and he complied. By the next morning I knew two things. One was I never, ever wanted to find myself back in the hospital with kidney stones and that water was the cure for far more ills that I had ever imagined.

When I found myself sitting in the cooling tub -heat exhaustion this time - again with multiple IV's to re-hydrate me, AND a rectal thermometer, AND for the second time, I thought it prudent to find out how not to do that again. The second time I had been drinking water and Gatorade, thinking it would help my body. I was wrong. Again I learned two things. They were the same two things I had learned with the kidney stone incident.

No one can convince another what is best for them. Many times, me included, we don't want to hear what is best for us because we have/are doing something else we like better. We can convince ourselves of the darnedest things! It is what it is. And sometimes life grabs us by the throat and shakes us good. Then we experience a whole new perspective.

Y'all take care out there in that heat.
 
At work they always push us to drink half water half Gatorade. You can go overboard with either. I don't know of anyone that ever had issues with excess gatoraide that wasnt taking in 3gal of fluids or more a day. Excess water without electrolytes is a little more common. The two main ways to monitor it are bathroom trips - both frequency and color, and sweating. If you ever stop sweating when you should still be, you have gotten to the edge of major problems. That's probably a little harder to tell in the dry areas though.



A side note, most of the high school sports teams when I was younger kept power aide mixed at 50% of normal strength for the kids.
 
I made it to around noon yesterday. Just too dang hot. We made it somewhere into the hundred plus teens and then the humidity rolled in. Got brutal fast. You just have to pick your fights with this stuff. I chose to let it win yesterday, we'll see what today brings.
 
while i was putting together those bean bag toss games, i was sweating so much, i knew what a self basting turkey feels like in the oven. but i made sure to take plenty of breaks, and down a bottle or two of water at each break. the worst parts of it, was that my shirt was so soaked, it felt like someone had dumped water all over me, and while driving the sheet rock screws, i kept sweating into my glasses while looking down.
 
I guess I'm the odd ball. At work I drink coffee all day. There isn't any air circulation unless you happen to be working where one of the two mobile fans are at. I wear my pull on boots, jeans and a heavier than normal t-shirt and I don't have any problems. My car doesn't even have working a/c.

I mention this cause the people that have lived here in Texas all there life can't seem to tolerate the heat. They wear shorts, tank tops and sneakers and you swear they were about to die and they have to have the fan blowing on them. It was the same at another shop at I worked at down here. I felt the fans blowing hot air on you was worse cause it seems like it's the same principle as a convection oven. You'd figure someone as big as me wouldn't be able to tolerate the heat but I seem to do just fine.

As far as consuming something other than coffee if I do it needs to be at room temp or just noticeably cooler. Cold drinks when I'm hot just get my stomach upset and make me feel bloated.
 
My brother used to work in a die casting plant. It wasn't uncommon during the day to be 130 inside. All the old timers worked 3rd shift because it was "cool" then. I'd go visit him in the summer at home and he'd be sitting on the couch watching TV with the A/C off and it would be 100 in the house. I wouldn't stay long! I'm telling this because I think acclimation is very important for dealing with heat and cold. Hydration is also important.
 
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