Forums >Health and Nutrition>Over hydration?
What, if any, are the risks (other than needing to pee w/out facilities nearby) of over hydrating? My Dr. has me terrified of becoming dehydrated (I'm pregnant) so I drink and drink and drink. Until I'm miserable. I got a side stitch and could hear my stomach sloshing at the end of my last long run. Not sure if it matters, but I'm doing a mix of Gatorade and water.
I don't half-ass anything
"I have several close friends who have run marathons, a word that is actually derived from two Swahili words: mara, which means 'to die a horrible death' and thon, which means 'for a stupid T-shirt.' Look it up." - Celia Rivenbark, You Can't Drink All Day if You Don't Start in the Morning
Feeling the growl again
Well, in the extreme, hyponautremia. Basically you deplete your body of salts and very very bad things happen. Worse yet, the intiial symptoms often mimic dehydration, leading people to drink even more....
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
Like spaniel said... the worst case is death, due to hyponatremia.
well aren't you guys a bucket of sunshine today
I don't think I'm drinking THAT much. But I'll make sure I put down the bottle when I get the gut sloshing sound...
Neurological symptoms (confusion), nausea/vomiting, and swelling of hands and feet usually all happen well before the really bad things like acute renal failure and coma and death and stuff.
FWIW ultrarunners also worry about another type of overhydration: with plenty of sodium. IIRC this is less serious than hyponatremia, differs in that you tend to have an increased scale weight. Probably not something a typical runner needs to worry about - this type tends to happen over 8+ hours normally (I had it happen once in a hundred.)
NB that for most people, there is little to fear with drinking too much as long as you're getting enough sodium along with it. And if you're just running for an hour and drinking a liter of water you probably don't need to worry about anything at all.
Like Trent always says - your body will generally let you know what is good for it. If you feel uncomfortable, don't drink so much. Just be more conscious of not drinking than you normally would since there are two of you to hydrate.