[jbug]

What is the best thing to drink for dehydration? I have been drinking water but it hasn't been doing a dang thing. I am going to the grocery store this afternoon and would like to know what to buy. Gatorade vs. Pedialyte. I know last time I was dehydrated I drank that G2 the Gatorade that doesn't have as much sugar and that helped but wanted to get y'all's input too.

Jbug

[Christina86]

Never heard of the other one...

But I *totally* recommend Gatorade. Or Powerade.

They have electrolytes, and are really good if you're dehydrated. Or sick. Or if you want to prevent a hangover... yep, the possibilities are almost endless. Come in lots of tasty flavours too.

That's my recommendation

[jbug]

Pedialyte is like Gatorade for kids. When my dad was on chemo they had him drinking that by the gallons. But I will go with the Gatorade.

Jbug

[Rhapsody]

Please keep in mind that the body needs 8 cups of water per day to be probably hydrated.

[wanttoheal]

I use a natural drink to help hydrate my body. I add a tablespoon of raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar and some raw honey to a glass of water. It only has one flavor though lol so probably either of your choices are good too.

[jbug]

I went and stocked up on the gatorade and now need to go get more. The reason I was dehydrated was I was constipated and now that that problem is solved the dehydration problem is slowly being solved also. I am feeling better. Still pretty weak and tired but at least I'm still drinking and able to pee. Before I was barely peeing.

Jbug

[ECHOES]

jbug, your constipation may also have been a symptom of your dehydration.

Here's a link for you for a home-made recipe for a rehydration drink:
rehydration drink recipe
... or ...
rehydration drink recipe #2
and another interesting site on dehydration:
about dehydration

jbug, I hope you're feeling better soon !

[kim_johnson]

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9303999

Adding sugar to water increases drinking by up to 90%. Those sports drinks are basically a cash cow and they don't provide any added benefits that can't be gotten from eating a balanced diet and ensuring that one ingests adequate amounts of water (e.g., by fairly constantly sipping from a sipper bottle).

Most people (including high performance atheletes) get more than enough salt (sodium) from their meals...

Adding sugar (or other carbs) to water makes you more likely to drink more of it but one needs to be careful of the carbs in drinks just as one needs to be careful of the carbs in food (with respect to weight).

Adding sugar (or other carbs) to water is reccommended for atheletes who are expected to exercise on peak for LONGER THAN ONE HOUR. The sugar provides an energy boost that increases performance. There is no evidence that adding sugar (or other carbs) to water assists with performance in exercise on peak for LESS THAN ONE HOUR. Unless you are an athelete... Adding carbs to water is about taste (to help you drink more) rather than for any medical reason, and one needs to be careful of ones calorie intake.

Water... Slightly cooled to improve the flavor is still the best thing for hydration UNLESS you are an athelete who needs to perform highly for longer than one hour...

[wanttoheal]

or unless you can't palette the taste and really need to get the liquids down.

[kim_johnson]

Yeah. Sometimes I'll put a few drops of lemon or lime juice into the water to make it more palatable...

Water kind of is an acquired taste, though. Back home (where the climate was much more humid) I could get away with getting enough water by drinking coffee and coke. Then I moved to a dryer climate and I started feeling really quite sick: coughing with dry irritated airways, constipated etc etc etc.

I started carrying around a sipper bottle and I'd drink as frequently as I could to try and get 3 per day down me. It helped me out HEAPS. My throat felt better... Took about a week but the constipation went away... My skin felt more supple, too. I guess flavouring the water does help with getting it down you (studies showed people drank 90% more on average when it was flavoured). But you do need to be careful with respect to the calories in the water. And... You don't need them or the vitamins or the sodium...

Just recently... I've started actually feeling like water (instead of coke) when I'm thirsty. Never thought that would happen. For the longest time I'd start to crave coke and had to consciously reinterpret that into a desire for water. Now... I actually crave (and prefer) water because drinking it helps me feel more hydrated (whereas the stuff in coke mostly gave me the short lived illusion of hydration).

With respect to the constipation: Dried fruit. Really. Apricots, prunes, raisins / sultanas... Give yourself a decent hit of them in the first instance then really keep up on the water and it really should lift :-)

Also... When I feel like snacking I'd try and drink a glass of water and then wait 10 minutes to see if I still felt like snacking... It has done wonders for weaning me off potato chips :-)

[ECHOES]

I prefer water often, too. But unlike most people who like it chilled, I like it right out of the tap at whaterver temperature it comes out. Where I live it's rarely very cool.

When I'm dining out I ask for a glass of tap water and boy is that hard to get! lol I ask for just a glass of water from the tap, no ice, no lemon. I ask that it come from the tap and not from a machine. I rarely get that, even though I ask explicitly and even in a small place that isn't busy at the time. The wait staff seem to want to make my water special when I like it plain.

Machines like soda or tea dispensers and ice machines---generally filthy. Consumer Reports did a study and the 2 dirtiest places in an office environment were the ice machine and the push buttons for the elevators.

Bottled water? Comes from a machine, no thank you.

Lemon--I don't think the lemon is washed, yet it is cut up on an unkown surface, grabbed up with a bare hand, and stuck in a bowl in the fridge uncovered until it's plopped into my drink. yuk!!!! lol

Just plain old water is all I want.