Dehydration is a deficiency of total body water. It’s a common disease which can happen to anyone. Dehydration occurs when fluid loss exceeds water intake. For example due to exercise, infections and high environmental temperature. People can withstand up to 3-4% loss in total body water without any health issues. But 5-8% loss could lead to fatigue and dizziness. If the loss of body water reaches of tally 15-25%, it will lead towards death.
Causes of Dehydration:
Several reasons cause dehydration such as:
- Fever, heat exposure, and excessive exercise.
- By not drinking enough water or losing more water than you take in. The body is losing water through sweat, vomiting, tears, urine or diarrhea.
- Excessive consumption of alcohols can also cause dehydration. As alcohol is diuretic, which means it makes you weaker. Headaches caused due to a hangover indicate that your body is suffering dehydration. While drinking alcohol, you should drink plenty of water.
- If a person has diabetes, then he’s at risk of becoming dehydrated due to high levels of glucose in the bloodstream. The kidneys are then trying to recompensate by generating glucose by producing more urine.
- No access to safe drinking water.
- The body is losing precious water through damaged skins. Mostly caused by Injuries to the skin such as burn wounds, infection or severe skin diseases.
Hyponatremia can also be one of the causes. This occurs when you get overhydrated while exercising and due to low sodium (salt) levels in the blood. It mostly happens if too much water is drunk in a short period.
Signs of Dehydration:
Children and infants are usually at risk of suffering dehydration due to their low body weight. This makes them sensitive even to small amounts of fluid loss. They are careless and even less aware of the fact that their body is being dehydrated and require to drink water. If your child got fever, diarrhea, vomiting, or is sweating a lot after heavy physical activities. Then you should watch out for signs of dehydration, which includes:
- Dry mouth.
- Eyes look sunken into the head.
- Lack of urine for 7-8 hours.
- Dark yellow and smelling urine.
- Few or no tears while crying.
- Irritability or lethargy.
How to deal with Dehydration:
The best way to prevent dehydration is to make sure your kids drink plenty of water when they are physically active or sick. They should consume more fluid than they lose. The best way to treat dehydration is to drink plenty of fluids, sports drinks or sweet drinks.
Dehydration causes headaches accordingly the body needs hydration. Drinking water would make you feel better within half an hour or so. For children, Pedialyte would be the better option as they provide electrolytes and carbohydrates to help absorb water better. Pedialyte is a type of rehydration drink.
What is a rehydration drink?
It’s merely a fluid such as water used to rehydrate the body. Oral rehydration therapy came up in the latter part of the 20th century. It has helpfully decreased deaths in human due to dehydration in diarrhea, especially in cholera and in children. It is the first advancement in global public health. Oral rehydration therapy (ORT) is a kind of liquid supplement used as a preventive treatment against dehydration mostly in the case of diarrhea. It contains drinking water with proper amounts of sugar and salt added, commonly known as oral rehydration solution or ORS. In severe cases, only replenishment of necessary water and electrolytes can correct a dehydrated state. As oral rehydration is less painful, less invasive, less expensive, readily available and it’s easy to provide.
If in case an oral rehydration solution lacks availability then a basic oral rehydration therapy solution can be easily made. By using six teaspoons of sugar and the half teaspoon of salt in one liter of water. You can solve this quickly. The proper fluid for producing ORS solution is clean water. Moreover, if it’s not available then usually available water should not be used.
How to deal with dehydration?
It’s simple, drink water and clear liquids in a small amount. Water is usually enough to rehydrate an adult.
- Avoid some fluids such as caffeine.
- Avoid consumption of alcohols.
- Get a few packets of oral rehydration solution (ORS), mix it with clean water and drink it frequently.
- Continue hydrating.
- Have foods with high water content.
If you have a question arising in your mind that what should I drink for dehydration? Then there are some energy drinks too which is available in the shops quickly, such as Gatorade, glucose, sports drink these all are helpful. They help in maintaining electrolyte in your body.
So this is some necessary information regarding dehydration. If you keep these simple things in your mind, then you can quickly get over it.
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