When you’re exerting yourself on a hot summer day, the symptoms of dehydration—dry mouth, exhaustion, and dizziness—can appear unexpectedly quickly. However, this frequent health problem can happen in any weather.
When your body loses or uses more fluid than it takes in, it becomes dehydrated and is unable to operate normally due to deficiency of water and other fluids. Dehydration will occur if you don’t intake adequate amount of water.
Dehydration can affect anybody, but it can be particularly harmful to small children and elderly people.
Causes of dehydration:
Dehydration occurs when body loses excess water along with electrolytes i.e sodium, potassium calcium. Kidneys are the major excretory organs that excrete excess water.
Common causes that lead to dehydration are discussed below.
Excessive urination:
Health condition like diabetes, urinary tract infection and use of antihypertensive drugs causes excessive urination. This causes loss of excess water from the body and in turn from the body cells that dehydrates them.
Watery stools:
Excess loss of water through loose consistency stools lead to severe dehydration.
Heat stroke:
Heat stroke causes excessive sweating and body looses huge amount of water leading to dehydration and critical health situation.
Less water intake:
Less water intake contributes towards dehydration. It can be more severe if you are not drinking enough water, along with pre-existing health conditions like diabetes, hypertension that loses body fluid extensively.
Pregnancy:
Excessive urination is one of the symptoms of pregnancy. Not drinking enough water during pregnancy can lead to dehydration, which is extremely fatal for fetus.
Symptoms of Dehydration:
- Confusion
- Restlessness
- Dry skin
- Flushed and flaky skin
- Yellow eyes
- Low blood pressure
- High heart beat
- Severely dry mouth
- Unconsciousness
Treatment options for dehydration:
Dehydration must be treated with plenty of fluid intake or fluid administration to avoid any serious health condition.
Following are some treatment options for dehydration.
Drink water:
Drink alot of water in hot weather and in any health condition that removes large amount of water from body. Replace alcohol, soft drinks and coffee with water intake to fulfil water deficiency.
Eat vegetables:
Add vegetables to your food table which contains larges amount of water like spinach.
Maintain IV fluid:
Maintain proper iv fluid line to cope up with deficiency of water and electrolytes. This treatment option is mostly for infants and adults who cannot take enough water through food and liquid intake.
Seek doctor consultation:
Seek doctor consultation immediately if patient is unconscious, faint, not blinking eyes, heart beat is irregular. Sever dehydration is medical emergency and prompt action is required to safe patient’s life.
Takeaway:
Dehydration is serious health condition, that must be treated promptly. Lack of information and awareness about dehydration can lead to fatal health condition. One must know about causes, symptoms and treatment options for dehydration.
