The Unforeseen Impact of Hydration on Health

I thought my brain was in serious illness as cancer because of the excruciating headache. This constant pain had been a couple of month’s since delivering my baby. The result of a MRI shocked me that I was having an earthquake in my brain. A doctor prescribed “lots of fluids” with the diagnosis of dehydration. I told the doctor, “Are you kidding? I spent 500 dollars to see what is wrong with me. Just need to drink water for my headaches?” Of course, I was glad to be diagnosed with no disease or illnesses, but the extravagance—without the insurance—made me regret my decision to go there. However, the knowledge about the importance of hydration affected my life to drink four bottles of water a day. Most of us know we cannot survive without water,

The mild symptoms of dehydration can occur two to five percent loss in water. The most common symptoms of the mild in adults are tiredness, fatigue or dryness like thirst, dry skin, or dry mouse. Some pains also carry with the mild such as headaches, constipations, or muscle cramps. Even with the mild can hurt our emotions or brain. For example, we may start to lose our appetites or concentration.

The moderate symptoms may begin to indicate with six to ten percent of the loss. Sunken eyes; decreased ability to sweat; little or no urine output; tingling hands and feet; increased heart rate; faster breathing; higher body temperature; muscle cramps; extreme fatigue; and nausea. We may feel the dryness such as thirst, dry or stick mouth, dry or cool skin with both mild and moderate dehydration. The dryness may not bother to some youngers, but for some older people can perhaps irritate with the dehydration. Minimal urine, few or no tears when crying, muscle cramps, dizziness or lightheadedness, constipation, headache, sleepiness or

The easiest way to test dehydration is to check the urine color. For example, fluid intake should increase if the urine color is darker than clear or very light yellow. The unusual urine color or no urine can be the sign of the severe dehydration that may require hospitalization. Another way is to lick the lips to feel dry or taste salty; the dry lips mean we need to drink more water, but the salty tasting lips can signal for severe dehydration. With this situation, we may need to drink sports drinks that contain electrolytes because electrolytes can cover the dehydration quickly. The significant test for elders is that when we pinch the skin on our arms to see if the skin comes right back into shape or