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Fluid intake

Mikey1209

Member
Messages
7
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
I usually drink between 4 - 6 litres of water/fluids per day. I amd just concerned that a new Doctor at our practice told me off and that I should be drinking 10 -12 litres of fluids.
If I drank that much I'd live on the toilet. Bad enough every 2 hours now.
I'm not worried though as I can only drink what I can drink but I been told he's telling newly diagnosed Diabetics the same.
 
I thought 2 litres was recommended, at least for the normal population.
 
No, you don't need to drink 10 - 12 litres a day. That's insane. Even 4 - 6 is too much, as is the proverbial "8 glasses of water a day". You only need to take in about 2.5 litres of water a day, and a lot of that will be in the food you eat, so there's no need to drink so much water. Of course, if you're in the desert or running a marathon you'll need more. Drinking too much water flushes needed minerals out of your system and makes your kidneys work harder than needed.
http://www.sciencealert.com/there-s...ght-glasses-of-water-a-day-researcher-advises
 
I'm no doctor, but that sounds like very bad advice to me...
My mother ended up in hospital last year, close to death with hyponatremia, after increasing her fluid intake to around 3 litres per day. In line with what NoCrbs4Me says above, her salts and electrolytes had reached dangerously low levels and she first became very confused, and later collapsed. She was treated in hospital for almost a month before being allowed home, and has now been told to take no more than a litre per day, and preferably three-quarters of a litre of fluids.
Of course I don't know your medical status and it may be that you are supposed to drink more than normal, but it might be worth getting a professional second opinion on that fluid intake.
 
Maybe he meant glasses rather than litres. Although 10-12 is still too much.
 
My Dad was an old-school GP believing in water and fresh air as a cure for everything. He once told a patient to drink 6 glasses of water a day. She came back after a week and said she just couldn't manage to drink that much. "Oh" he said, "six isn't many." "Six, doctor " she said, "I thought you said sixty" !
 
Mikey1209 said:
I should be drinking 10 -12 litres of fluids.
Click to expand...

I can't even imagine where they got that piece of advice from, that's over 2 gallons and you'd be in the loo more than you are now.

Back in my Tesco Diets days the advice was 1.5 litres and that was based on the fact that the US military allowed for 1.5 litres of water per day for active combat soldiers. I haven't looked at my research from those days, it might have changed, but my argument was always why are we the only species that needs an Haynes Manual.

As I a diabetic, I tend to be thirsty a lot and drink a fair bit of water, bit but still only about 2 - 3 litres. I was once told by my doctor that drinking large amounts of water can "flush" out things like protein and if too much is drunk, can be very dangerous.

It's worth googling but I'm sure we all have different ideas, I drink when I'm thirsty.
 
I am drinking 4 litres a day and peeing all the time but this is down to a change in meds and a trial and error period of treatment just waiting for further tests to get my meds right. But my medical advice has been 4 litres is too much!
 

if you drink 3-4 liters of fluid a day you do fluch out essential minerals from your body and the cells get out of balance... unless of cause you live in the middle of an Australian very hot dessert...
in winter time in the temperated zone 1.5- 2 liters is enough for a average grown up person... in what way do you differ from an average person that make you need so much more fluid ????

that doctor must be a Quack of some kind or you must have misunderstood him..or her
 
I often drink more than the usual 2 litres a day, but I've always taken a lot of salt with my food, and years ago when I was on diuretics I used to get bad leg cramps, and sometimes now too when I wee too much, so I make sure that I also get plenty of potassium and magnesium (much of the latter from my fancy water filter) to replace what I'm flushing out. My body usually tells me how much I need to drink, so I tend to go by that. But certainly, it's not always a case of the more the better, and advice can sometimes get distorted/exaggerated so we do need to be aware that seriously over-drinking can be life threatening too.

If you think you might not getting enough fluid and are possibly dehydrated, other than your body's own "thirst meter", there's a little test you can do to check: just pinch some loose skin on the back of your hand, when you're OK it just jumps back quickly , if dehydrated it will tend to stick... I learned to do a similar test when I had a very sick dog on furisimide (durietic) and needed to keep his fluid intake up. Being little, dehydration could have had dire consequences for him.

Robbity
 
10-12 litres a day sounds excessive, @Mikey1209 ! I understand that feeling the need to be drinking in excess of 5 litres a day is enough to warrant investigation, so with all due respect to him or her I think perhaps the doctor might have been having a mad 5 minutes!

I'm currently under investigation for diabetes insipidus (or 'water diabetes'), with a water deprivation test scheduled for the end of next month. I drink and pass a huge amount of fluid, peaking at 10 litres in and 13 litres out in one 24-hour period in September - now measuring all that was inconvenient, as they had only supplied me with 2 x 5 litre collection bottles! Things have calmed down a bit since then, thankfully, with consumption and output currently both being around the 6-8 litre mark. To be honest I think I just like drinking (i.e. I feel it's more likely to be a psychological thing, rather than an endocrine thing), but as they've offered to check me out I'm taking them up on it.

Being told to drink 10-12 litres a day would scare me!

 
Does "fluids "mean 6+ litres of beer? Mmmmm
 
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