Essential H20

With the recent high temperatures, I've been being vigilant about getting enough water in my body for several reasons. The first and most obvious of these is to stay healthy in the heat, but even more important for me is to be sure my new transplanted kidney has enough H2O to do its job of filtering out toxins from my body.

A few weeks ago, when I was in the UP, I noticed some swelling occurring in my legs and abdomen. For kidney patients, this is a big deal, and could be the warning sign for some extremely serious conditions. It took me nearly 2 weeks to put together the ideas that a) it had been hot and I had been pretty active and sweaty recently, and b) I had no idea how much water I was drinking, so how could I know if it was enough?The hard part is that even when I don't feel thirsty, I can still be pretty low, which is exactly what happened in the UP.

If a body is low on water, it will hold on to any it already has and any coming in to avoid extreme dehydration, which is what my body was doing. So I started counting ounces, starting with the general '8 glasses a day' theory, which is only one of a million different ideas about how much water is enough. For me, 150 ounces a day is enough, which is just over a gallon. Seems like a lot? I thought so, but as I downed each glass (and subsequently used the restroom every hour), the swelling went away, and I had more energy within hours. The extra water I had 'third-spaced'  not only made me puffy and uncomfortable, it also held much of the toxicity that was usually removed from the body in urine. No wonder I felt kinda crappy and tired.

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