Don't water poison yourself!

I love water. I drink it all the time. But, when I was pregnant, I water poisoned myself twice and ended up in the hospital both times. I think I was drinking 2 gallons of ice water a day. I normally drink about a gallon of room temp water a day. Anyway, I just thought I was craving water because that was what my big pregnant belly wanted. Well, I knocked my electrolytes out of wack (mainly the sodium and potassium) and it got me a one way ticket to the E.R. My doctor banned me from drinking more that a gallon a day. I had to have gatorade or powerade after each cup I drank. I have not had that problem since I have had the baby (2 years ago).

That amount of water never bothered me before because I am so active andI would sweat it out. Being pregnant and not being able to race or be active and drinking that amount was not good for me!

I used to drink lots of water too. I remember hearing about a lady that was in some kind of radio contest and they had the contestants compete to see who could drink the most water in a short amount of time and she actually died from water poisoning. Ever since hearing about that, Ive alternated drinking water then drinking cranberry juice.

Its pretty scary to know the thing that your body needs the most can actually hurt you if you get too much of it...

I heard about that story. It was summer of 2007 becuase she was trying to win a gaiming system for her kids. She was a single mom and did not have much money. I am sure some salty peanuts or something would have kept me on track.

DreamMerchant wrote:I heard about that story. It was summer of 2007 becuase she was trying to win a gaiming system for her kids. She was a single mom and did not have much money. I am sure some salty peanuts or something would have kept me on track.

Yep, thats the story... So sad... Thanks for posting this!

Here's an article for those that havent heard about it. It has a snippet of the woman's story and talks about water intoxication: http://health.howstuffworks.com/water-intoxication.htm

you always hear about how you have to drink so many glasses of water, eliminate sugary drinks, etc. but you never hear about this. You do have to be careful because you can overhydrate yourself. There was a police officer who died from this very thing a few years back. You can read about his story here; very interesting.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/AR2005081001460.html