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!

[hufflepuffqueen]

haha a whole two paragraphs about pee! but anyway, I don't remember where I read that, but it was a long time ago, so I won't be able to find it anymore. I mean tea is better than pop and juice in getting you water, but its still not close to as good as water. But you knew that already! :)

[wurtlesworld]

:)

[wurtlesworld]

Oh, and herbal tea doesn't have any caffeine at all, so again, as long as you can stand to drink it unsweetened, it's an excellent source of water.

[fleith]

I would be surprised if tea didn't rehydrate you. There's really not much added to water when you put in a tea bag. You can tell too because you can see through tea (but you can't see through coffee!)

[hufflepuffqueen]

i need to learn how to do that (keep the links to the articles I read)...I really have no idea how you guys all do that all the time.

[fleith]

You should try using Google Notebook (http://www.google.com/googlenotebook/overview.html). I've used it when doing research for presentations at work. (OK, only one presentation since I just found this a month or two ago). But, I've also used it to share links for winter backpacking (http://www.google.com/notebook/public/02124483920148482282/BDQ4fSgoQsKGXyvYh).

Google is slowly taking over the world. But I can't help being apart of it!