Dehydration headaches

[hufflepuffqueen]

So, those of you that know me well, know that I hate water. I have gotten better lately, but for most of my life I chose to drink as little water as possible. Lately I have had constant headaches, and dry mouth and dehydrated lips. I just read an article that really hit me hard. I knew how bad I was suffering from dehydration every day, but I

Comments

[duckmonster]

I hate water, too. I drink green or herbal tea all day, to try to get some liquid in me, at least.

You should keep links to the articles you find, to post in these sorts of LJ updates. I like learning!

(Today's research item, while I was trying to keep myself awake during a teleconference, was "Is there any such thing as a safe-for-your-conscience African diamond?" [My Gmail ticker had some article on "Conflict Diamonds," which reminded me that I'd wanted to look that up, at some point. I have a friend with a near-PhD in International Relations, and she feels strongly about this issue.] It looks like maybe not. DeBeers is reallyreally bad. And the "Kimberly Process," as they call it--yeah, it makes sure diamonds weren't used to fund wars or terrorism, but what it does not do is make sure the diamonds weren't dug up by small children or people who are grossly underpaid.)

[hufflepuffqueen]

I remember reading at one time that drinking tea or coffee doesn't hydrate you at all. I can't remember when or where i read that, but I remember being surprised. It wasn't because of the cafeine either. I dont remember the details!!!

[wurtlesworld]

That's not exactly true. Caffeine does interfere with ADH (which is the hormone that controls the concentration of your urine) so it does make you pee more than drinking the same amount of water would. And, if you drink sweet tea or coffee, you use up some additional water to process the sugar, so like pop, super sweet tea really doesn't hydrate you. But if you're drinking unsweetened tea, there's definitely a net gain of water. If you're drinking decaffinated unsweetened tea, I would guess that that benefit is even better because the small amount of caffeine would mess even less with ADH. Coffee is a lot more concentrated and has a lot more caffeine than tea, so it doesn't hydrate you nearly as much.

So to summarize: Drinking unsweetened tea is probably the next best thing to water (or I guess gatorade?) when it comes to hydration. For you, make that decaf!

[wurtlesworld]

I've read somewhere that some overwhelming percentage of daytime fatigue in the US comes from dehydration too. I know at least at times in your life you've felt tired all the time. If that's still the case, you might want to think about having a glass of water whenever you feel sleepy in the middle of the day.

[hufflepuffqueen]

I'll try that! Way to be carol, way to be.

You'll never guess what I found at walmart tonight!!! Remember the alice in winderland I watched every day as a kid? Woot!

[wurtlesworld]

Wild! Did you buy it?

[hufflepuffqueen]

oh yes i did! I found it in the $5.50 bin, but it turned out that it was $9.88 and a customer put it in the wrong place. But I didn't care - I bought it anyway :)

[hufflepuffqueen]

we should get into little nutrition conversations as a group on here. It could get pretty interesting :)

[wurtlesworld]

Um, isn't that what we just did? ;)

[fleith]

As I was pouring hot water over my tea this morning, I remembered another benefit to drinking tea. Antioxidants! I don't know how much of it is hype and so forth (there are studies that go either way), but the antioxidants are suppose to be excellent for you, helping to prevent everything from cancer to heart disease.

[moonwater]

There are benefits to drinking tea *in addition* to plain water, not instead of it ;-) I do agree, tea is great, I drink it all the time. Nothing feels as good as getting enough water, though! I hate being even a little thirsty.