Drank too much water today and worrying about water intoxication

[nervousmummytobe]

My doctor told me I was dehydrated based on a urine sample . So today I drank tons ... Didn't even know you could drink to much. This morning in the space of two hours I had at least two liters. Then I had a evian 750ml bottle then a tea and a coffee and this evening two pints of water. This sounds like the amount that it is fro water intoxication. I have a bad head ache too. I feel so stupid

[Emilym80]

Hi there,

With respect, I'm not sure that's actually possible. When people die from water intoxication, they typically drink an enormous amount in a very short space of time (say for a competition) or drink lots and exercise much too hard.

It'd take 6 litres to intoxicate a 165 lb person. Also, coffee and tea are diuretics, so they'd have dehydrated you, too. On top of that, your kidneys are capable of flushing approximately 1 litre of fluid from you per hour, so I highly doubt that you have water intoxication, given that this has been over the course of the day as opposed to in a couple of hours.

If you start to feel really ill, ring your doctor, but I highly doubt that will happen. Maybe just don't drink too much for the rest of the day. I'm pretty sure my friend drinks about 5 litres every day (more than you have), she's constantly chugging on her bottle. Obviously her metabolism is something else entirely, BUT it's never made her ill.

I really think you'll be ok :) take care!

[bartin]

About 5 liters of water in a whole day as you seem to had is extremely unlikely to cause water intoxication if you are otherwise healthy and if you have eaten any salted food that day.

Water intoxication occurs when you drink a lot of plain water (>5 liters/day) and ingest no sodium from salted food or when you drink enormous amounts of water

When you eat salted food, you can usually drink more than 10 liters of water per day and you still will not be intoxicated.
http://www.ehealthstar.com/conditions/water-intoxication