Non-urgent - am I drinking enough?
 

Hi... This isn't exactly 'First Aid', but I'm just wondering how much I should be drinking on average in a day. At the moment, I'm drinking about a third of a glass of orange juice, 6 or 7 cups of (de-caffeinated) tea, and sometimes some Ribena or something too. I don't usually get thirsty, I'm always getting told to drink more, but the last four or five days I'm just really thirsty. My mouth and throat are so dry I can't even swallow properly, I have to sort of 'force' myself to, and I was just wondering if I could be dehydrated or something?

I'm anaemic too, I don't know if that makes a difference? I've been on iron tablets since September, but they think I'm still a bit anaemic even now, 'cos I'm usually really pale and cold. I dunno if that will affect anything...

So yeah...am I drinking enough? Obviously I'll drink more if I'm thirsty, but yeah...

Thanks. :)

You should drink about 2litres of water on a normal day (ie not really hot) so thats around 8glasses. Tea can dehydrate you a bit so its better not just to drink tea.

Since you've been feeling thirsty have you felt fine in every other way? Have you had any pelvic pain, or pain whilst weeing? Lost weight for no reason? Felt dizzy/faint/lethargic?

Nope, I think I've felt fine except for feeling thirsty.

I'll try drinking some more water instead of so much tea. Thank-you. :)

drinking tea isnt going to help the absorbance of your iron tablets, it should be avoid for 1-2 hrs after taking tablets
Have you tried rooibos tea (red bush by tetleys) it contains less tanins than regular tea and no caffeine but still taste similar to tea.

Yes, I'm tending to wait about an hour after the iron tablets before having tea at the moment - I'll try and wait for another hour!

I haven't heard of that before - I'll have a look for it, see what it's like. Thanks. :)

Tea is a natural diuretic, which means that you dont really get much flud from it as you end up "Wee'ing" it all back out. Idealy you should try to increse your fluids to about 2 Litres a day. However do this slowly as a sudden increase can be hard on your kidneys. The easiest way I find to increase my fluids is to always have a sports bottle to hand with water or juice in it. Then whenever you can drink some. Perhaps even try for one drink for every post you make or something similar.

Is the dryness you are experincing there all the time or only at certain times of day?
Have you been going to the toilet more often?
Or been eating more salty foods?

Thanks - I've put a load of drink bottles in my room, so I can drink them whenever I want to.

Is the dryness you are experincing there all the time or only at certain times of day?
I'm noticing it more at night than at other times, but it's throughout the day as well.

Have you been going to the toilet more often?
Not that I've noticed...maybe a bit more at night, which I guess explains the dryness more at night...

Or been eating more salty foods?
Nope...

Have you lost any unexplained weight?
Do you feel tired or rundown?
Any tingling or numbness in your hands or feet?
Any other symptoms such as taking a long time to heal, dry itchy skin, blurred vision?

Have you lost any unexplained weight?
Nope, not as far as I know.

Do you feel tired or rundown?
Hmm...yes. Sometimes I fall asleep in the afternoons for a while, and I don't have a lot of energy. But then...I don't sleep a lot sometimes...

Any tingling or numbness in your hands or feet?
Not in my feet. In my hands occasionally, but usually because they're so cold.

Any other symptoms such as taking a long time to heal, dry itchy skin, blurred vision?
No blurred vision...taking a long time to heal, I'm not sure about. Dry skin, yes.

Might be worth mentioning all that to your doctor, espcialy if you have any family history of diabetes. Lloyds chemist in my area off free checks, so that might be worth a mention. Increasing thirst can often be one of the signs of that you see, as can the tingling in your limbs.

Ok...well, I'm getting the results of my latest blood test for the anaemia soon, so I'll mention it to my doctor. Thank-you. :)