Dehydration symptoms

[Squeak]

Hi folks,
My wife and I recently went for a walk on the Bib Track. The plan was a 2 nighter from Hills Centre to Canning campsite. Due to the closure of Brookton.
Now admittedly i had a poor nights sleep the evening before we started.
We set out from Perth Hills centre, at sun up and stopped at Ball creek for breakfast.Headed off again with plans on camping at Beraking, We stopped at each site and rested regularly, and i drank a lot of water. However my energy levels were very low and by about 2pm I was knackered.
This is not usual. We are new to bushwalking and hiking but not long walks. Having walked aprox 1000km and completed the Camino de Santiago September 2014.

So I was surprised that I felt so bad. anyways as the day drew on we were about 8km from Beraking and i could not proceed further. We decided to pitch up off the track, however as we started to set up camp, I began vomiting quite a lot of liquid.
It seemed that my body was not metabolising the water i had been drinking.
We rested and had dinner (what i could stomach), slept restlessly, and got up the next day to try to complete the walk. The first hour we covered about 4km, but then i was knackered again, and vomited several times, mostly the water i had drunk. It then took us about 5 hours to walk a further 5km, untul I got mobile reception and called for a pick up.
I slept that night and had a slow start the next day but other than feeling tired I seemed to be fine from then on.

This was about September last year, it was the first hot weekend after winter, mid 30's.
I'm 52 and consider myself reasonably fit, and I have never experienced anything like this before, even after much more rigorous exertion.

Has anyone else experienced something like this?
Was it dehydration, as I was drinking lots of water, but not processing it.
Thanks

[neilmny]

Could have been a stomach bug.

[Turfa]

Maybe you drank too much water...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise- ... ponatremia

Current advice on hydration seems to be to only drink to your thirst..

[north-north-west]

Your body wasn't absorbing the fluids. You may have been very slightly dehydrated before starting.
I had a lot of trouble with this at one stage and found two things that fixed it:

a)In warmer weather, always carry something like Staminade, Hydralite, one of the isotonic powders/gels to mix with fluids. You don't need a lot of it - I find one 600-800ml bottle of water with Staminade, mixed a little weaker than the directions advise and taken roughly midway through the day, to be plenty (plus my normal uptake of straight water, of course).

b) Regular intake of snack foods such as nuts, muesli bars, crackers. Something with a bit of bulk and a bit of salt. Having something solid in the stomach seems to help with absorption of the fluids and prevents the stuff just sitting there and bloating you.

Of course, different bodies react in different ways, but this has worked for me.

[Hermione]

Hills Discovery Centre to Beraking is quite a long day, from memory about 30km. I see you've done the Camino, and are used to walking but 30km with an overnight pack is quite a long way if you're just starting out. Do you have any idea of your pack weight? Also if you started feeling rubbish early on maybe like neilmny said you just weren't well anyway and it wasn't to do with the walking.

[RonK]

Sounds like heat exhaustion to me.

[GPSGuided]

Sounds like a multitude of factors including dehydration, electrolyte disturbances, exhaustion (lack of endurance and glycogen depletion) etc, all exacerbated by heat and each other. Once beyond a certain point, oral fluid/caloric a absorption is no longer effective and a slippery slope ensues. Lucky you recovered.

[Xplora]

You say you were drinking a lot of water. How much is a lot? There is a condition called hyponatrema which is caused by drinking too much water. Your symptoms are similar to the early stages and it can be fatal. You can google it and see if it applies.

[wayno]

could have been a stomach bug or heat stress.
your body needs enough minerals to absorb water, run low on minerals like sodium potassium and magnesium and it won't get absorbed well. too much water dilutes your available minerals too much to effectively control where the water goes.

[Gadgetgeek]

I would agree with the statements so far. Probably a combo of a few things just pushed you a little too far.

Keep in mind that an adult male in ideal conditions can only absorb something like 1100 ml of water per hour. So drinking past that, or if your body was not absorbing it as fast for any reason (stress reduced blood to the bowels, which reduces absorption)

[kitty]

As the others said...heat exhaustion and if you werent dehydrated before you got sick, then you would have been dehydrated from vomiting.
The ground in the Perth hills can really heat up and radiate heat, and it can be so dry out there. 30km is a long walk on a hot day in the hills!
Like NNW, I use electrolite, I like Hydralite. Especially on the Bibb I take one every morning, and in the evening if Im knackered I will take another.
I also prepare by taking Hydralite 1 day before I start a hike so Im well hydrated to begin with.

[wayno]

dry hot environments are deceptive, a lot of your sweat dries fast your body can end up putting out a maximum amount of sweat to keep cooling you, you have little idea how much water you're loosing in sweat.
i did a walk recently, walked all morning, sat around half the afternoon in the sun then walked late afternoon, i was evaporating sweat all day but didnt factor that in to my walk, drank half a litre before walking but in the next hour i was still thirsty and went through another pint of water , i was drinking constantly all afternoon because i had a deficit i wasnt aware of from the amount os sweat i'd lost. i'm less familiar with water intake in warm weather let alone hot weather..
cycling i notice I have needed a high amount of water for the amount of exertion i'm doing, the forward speed increases sweat evaporation...

[CasualNerd]

Vomiting suggests you might have had a bug, maybe drinking contaminated water ?

I definitely rely on electrolyte tablets in hot weather, sweating lots loses a lot of salts and a quality sports supplement will do you a world of good. If drinking lots of water isn't making you feel better, quite often the lack of salt is affecting you.

[Gadgetgeek]

If you are vomiting water, its more likely the body trying to get rid of it, once its not able to be absorbed. contaminated water should be 12 or so hours to kick in, so he would have had to get the bad water before leaving home. I'm still calling electrolyte imbalance. a bug is possible, but less likely that early into a trek.

[wayno]

could be food poisoning as well.

[walkerchris77]

Sounds like heat exhaustion to me.

I agree. I work outside in the heat and one day all of a sudden i felt really hot and dizzy and tired. My mate realized the heat had got to me and put me under a tree, took some of my clothes off and poured some water on me.

15 mins later i was fine.
Amazing how quick it crept up on me.

[Gadgetgeek]

it does not take much some times. One thing people often forget is that only one factor needs to be there to put you down. You can be low on water, but have good electrolytes and not over heated, and it will cause problems. But you can also overheat with good hydration.

There is a thing that happens in Canada at the start of winter. Ambos call it the heart-attack snow. Usually the first snow worth shoveling will cause a large number of heart attacks due to over-exertion. Old guys go out, work way harder than they have in months because the cold lets your muscles work at much higher efficiency and they don't realize how hard they are exerting. Same thing can happen in the heat. Everything is good, and you can get closer to the threshold without realizing it, then one degree change, or blood sugar dwindles, bang, the body de-compensates and collapses. Happens to athletes more because they can push harder. Guys like me gas out far before that because something else has already taken over.

[puredingo]

Yes, I agree. All the contributing factors above would have certainly led to you being physically sick....and sometimes you just have "one of those days". I know on some walks I've been totally in the zone and felt like I could push on forever and other time I've had more than enough to drink and eat but barely have the will nor energy to climb a slight bank?

For me a lot is mental. If I'm not particularly excited about walk and it's just one to tick off or I feel slightly crook to begin with then it's probably not a good idea to be out there.

[Stroller]

I don't know if vomiting is a dehydration symptom but once i vomited water after drinking it on a trek. It wasn't hot. I was close on 5000m above sea level. Exhaustion due to the altitude was more the thing. I wasn't particularly fit at the time but the altitude certainly made the going harder for me. At one point near the top i had a drink of water and soon after i vomited it. I was not dehydrated, nor had bad water, nor foood poisoning or anything else.

Some one gave me a glucose tablet and some others dragged me to the top which was only a couple of hundred metres away at that stage. I would have got there by myself in time but i guess i was holding people up or they just thought i'd prefer to be up quicker. After a short rest on top, i was completely fine again.

When i'm dehydrated i tend to get cramps in my legs and think i'm drinking plenty of water but i've learnt now that if you are sweating a lot or losing a lot of water from other areas, your body salts will be low so you need to take in more in order to be able to consume and retain enough water. So i try to make sure i add enough salt to my food when i think this is a risk. If you don't eat processed food it is a risk.

[Gadgetgeek]

I did my self pretty badly this week, tuesday was really hot (32 or so) and was stuck out in the sun for most of it. Didn't get enough water in, and by the end of the day was pretty ragged. wednesday was spent recovering, trying to not drink too much water, but let my body re-balance, fighting with a minor headache all day.

[Stroller]

Gadget geek, the headache is a clear sign of dehydration. You should have taken in salt and water. You would have recovered quickly.

[Turfa]

A headache is just as typical a symptom of hyponatremia, which can be caused by taking in too much water. It is surprisingly common in anyone undertaking extended exercise. The symptoms are similar to dehydration so it is easy to believe you are getting dehydrated & then drink more, making the problem worse. The current advice seems to be that your thirst is the best guide to your hydration state. Only drink when you are thirsty, don't force yourself to drink lots of water in an attempt to avoid dehydration.

http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/e ... ponatremia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise- ... ponatremia

[Gadgetgeek]

yeah, I've done it to myself enough times to know better, but sometimes it still happens. I'm pretty good at getting back on my feet afterwards, but it takes a day of just getting everything back in order. Everyone is a little different, and I just don't handle heat as well as most aussies. That and I've been off work for the holidays so I have lost a fair amount of whatever heat conditioning I did have. I have the luxury of working early in the morning at home and being lazy all afternoon. At work I was stuck up a tree for half the afternoon, not a time you feel like drinking too much.

[Stroller]

A headache is just as typical a symptom of hyponatremia, which can be caused by taking in too much water. It is surprisingly common in anyone undertaking extended exercise. The symptoms are similar to dehydration so it is easy to believe you are getting dehydrated & then drink more, making the problem worse. The current advice seems to be that your thirst is the best guide to your hydration state. Only drink when you are thirsty, don't force yourself to drink lots of water in an attempt to avoid dehydration.

http://www.humankinetics.com/excerpts/e ... ponatremia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise- ... ponatremia

Yes never force yourself to drink more than you feel you need. And Yes people who get hypnotraemia are drinking alot and if you are drinking a lot, you should know you are drinking a lot. People who sip constantly are at risk. Those camel backs are a bad idea.

Another way to tell is to know how much you've been drinking. If you've drunk 6 and more litres, you would be more inclined to hypnotraemia than dehydration. If you've drunk 3 litres or less in really hot conditions, you can suspect dehydration.

Either way,there is electrolyte imbalance. Take more salts on and your problem should disappear, although i think you will recover more quickly from dehydration than hypnotraemia if you are the stage of headache.
In 2014, i had plenty of occasion to observe the dehydration headache situation and its cure. I was dieting and doing low carb and also seeing on a forum, lots of other people going through similar situation. When you go low carb, you lose a lot of water and everyone at first gets headaches until they learn how to ensure they avoid electrolyte imbalance. Headache is one of the first signs of dehydration and its so easy to fix. A cup of soup or a cup of miso soup and you will headache free in no time.

And stop the sipping habit. Drink by the cup full. Sipping wrecks the value of thirst as a useful indicator of how much water your need.

[Lophophaps]

And stop the sipping habit. Drink by the cup full. Sipping wrecks the value of thirst as a useful indicator of how much water your need.

That's interesting. Where does that leave water containers with tubes for sipping? I've found that drinking from a bottle, cup or the like is better than via a tube. I wonder if there's science on this matter. It's probably quite hard to measure.

[slparker]

Hyponatraemia is usually found (in healthy people) in athletes who drink a lot of water very quickly. usually cup after cup at a drink station and then keeping running.
Sipping water regularly is less likely to cause hyponatraemia as the volume is consumed over a longer time(giving the kidneys time to offload the fluid)

By far the most common heat illness is heat exhaustion which is a problem of electrolyte depletion +/- dehydration.

There's plenty of good advice here on drinking small amounts regularly, taking sufficient salt containing food, regular resting and drinking enough to abate thirst or keep the urine a weak tea colour.

[Stroller]

Yeah i am not really suggesting that people who sip will get hypnotraemia but i do think they drink much more than necessary. People who sip tend to drink a lot more than those who don't even when not exercising and when i read about how much people tend to drink who do this its striking. And they will tell you they are always thirsty. They live in fear of dehydration and drink on the notion that drink when thirsty. But if you are constantly sipping, you don't really know when you are thirsty or not.

Lopho, i am not making a distinction between tubes, cups and other objects but rather the manner in which people take in water. Sipping versus drinking by the glass. The runners get hypnatraemia not because of what they drink on the run but what they have drunk before starting I understand.

Anyway i doubt a hiker is getting hypnaetraemia and i do think the OP's situation was more likely to be dehydration and headache is a symptom.

The best way to know if you are dehydrated is the colour of your pee. If its clear or pale yellow you are fine. If its dark yellow you need to drink and if you don't feel thirsty when your pee is yellow, then its likely that your body salts are out.

[Gadgetgeek]

Its also very important to not conflate dehydration with heat-stress. you can have one without the other.

Hyponatraemia is pretty hard to do to yourself. So I wouldn't say most people are at a great risk of it. In high heat when people are drinking cool water to cool off, perhaps, some sports when water guzzling is common. I think everyone is different enough, and the thirst reflex is a poor enough indicator in most people, that trying to gauge it is pretty hard. better off let your kidneys have enough to work with, and pee more.

I was working field-side at an U-16 rugby game. (union rules) A scrum forms, and a kid comes popping out like a watermelon seed, no control. Runs about 20 meters (40 if you count the s-bends) hits his knees and dumps his guts. I'm in full sprint thinking this kid has been kicked in the head and has a major concussion. Nope, dummy forgot to pre-hydrate on the bus, so he drank three liters of water before hitting the field. His coach was less than impressed.

[puredingo]

Hmmm. I've never been a big fan of the water bladder, my thinking was if I'm in need of a drink then it's probably a good time to drop the pack and take five, rest and enjoy a guzzle. BUT for this Christmas my missus goes and gets me a Platypus/camelback thingy (shows how much attention she pays to my gear preferences!) and I must admit I was pleasently surprised. Sipping away as you go does have it's benefits, my only gripe is you are commited to carrying X amount of water when on some walks, with good water supply, it isn't needed.

Also I find a good flushing of water over the head/down the back of the neck sometimes feels just as bebeficial as drinking it. Absolutely no scientific evidence to back this up but if you can spare the water it revigourating!

[north-north-west]

Also I find a good flushing of water over the head/down the back of the neck sometimes feels just as beneficial as drinking it. Absolutely no scientific evidence to back this up but if you can spare the water it revigourating!

It doesn't hydrate you, but it is the most efficient way of regulating your body temperature when walking.