See also:
Injury
Illness
Sleep Deprivation
Hunger
Heat
Cold

"Dehydrated" basically means "depleted of water". When our bodies are losing water, but not taking enough in, we get dehydrated, which makes us thirsty. If we don't drink, than we get even more dehydrated, and start feeling ill.

I know every one of us has gotten thirsty at some point in our lives. Some of us have experienced extreme conditions, and gotten dehydrated quite badly.
Share what it was like! We want to know, so we can put our characters in such situations---with realism.

Note: I apoligize for the large number of parenthesis. I couldn't think of anyother way to write this post.


As certain members know, I practically live in a chronic state of mild-dehydration. I'm rarely thirsty (probably because I'm used to dehydration...), but even when I am I will decide to just wait to drink something 'til the next meal time.

Dehydration usually only manifests itself in minor cases of physical problems. For one thing, my cheeks are constantly guant. (Not sure what that looks like? Think Grand Moff Tarkin. I'm not close to being that bad, but it is often very evident that I have taut cheeks.) For another, I have a semi-bad case of acne.

When compared to the shape the rest of my body is in, I have a surprisingly large amount of endurance for light physical stress (i.e. walking) (I really have no idea why I have that much endurance for walking -- it doesn't seem to make sense); however, my body can't handle medium and heavy exertion very well (when I start jogging/running it takes less than a minute before I'm caput and gasping for breath) (I am sure this is not completely due to dehydration, but being dehydrated certainly does not help matters).

The worst problem chronic dehydration has presented me is oxygen deprivation. There are times, after making a sudden movement (i.e. suddenly rising up from a chair or bed, or making an about face), that I use more oxygen then my body produces I've been told this is because my diaphram has problems with coping with the sudden changes and doesn't pick up the pace (so to speak) fast enough and I lose my balance and start to 'see stars' and/or begin to black out. A few of these times I've noticed loss of coherent thought, but most of the time the oxygen loss isn't major enough for me to recognize any noticable change in my ability to think and I have never completely blacked out. Particularly severe instances usually cause me to lean heavily against a wall or crouch on the floor until I can think and see clearly again. I've heard that this condition is very common for any person that is going through puberty, but the problem becomes infrequent and soon disappears normally. Dehydration only compounds the problem.


I don't think this post will be too helpful for most instances -- it probably only applies to charries that have been dehydrated for a long time and/or are in their teens -- but I hope it is helpful in some way.

Sometimes it has a feeling similar to standing up too quickly. In my experience, it's usually a slight darkening of peripheral eyesight as well as the spots and stars Sui mentioned. Sometimes the surrounding sounds get a little bit muffled and subtly replaced by the seemingly remote sound of my own heart beating. Unclear thinking occasionally follows.

I really haven't thought about this much; I have never suffered from dehydration, I don't think.

*Subscribes to topic*

Dehyradtion has a lot to do with eyes. I wear contacts, and when I haven't drank much, my contacts don't stick or conform to my eyes very well. Once, when my Mom had an eye appointment, the doctor told her, "I can't even examine your eyes, they are so dry." He gave her some eye drops and gave her another appointment date to come back. My dad suggested that she drink more water. On the way to her next appointment she drank a lot! The doctor was amazed at the difference.

When my older sister was little (like seven) she would have horrible headaches - like wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-screaming kind of headaches. Once, they called the ambulance, took her the hospital, did tests. But the tests no abnormalities around the brain. My parents thought it might be that she was allergic to cinnamon, but refraining from cinnamon made no difference. Finally, they began encouraging her to drink more and made her drink a huge cup of water before bed. And the headaches stopped!

I didn't realize these meant dehydration. There are periods of time that this happens to me frequently. It varies from fuzzy vision and unsteady feet to complete momentary blindness. At that point I get to the floor as fast as I can--usually in a crouching position. In one instance my friend thought I fainted, but I reassured her I had to center myself on the ground until my vision cleared. Those times my head and heart pound a couple extra beats.

As for the atypical symptoms of dehydration, I have never experienced a severe case. Nausea was the worst it ever got.

I've seen several cases of many degrees while working as a summer camp staff member for the past 6 summers. It's one of the reasons the staff are so proactive in forcing the kids and adults to drink water--not just sports drinks.

The earlier stages include thirst and tiredness (lethargy). It may be crude, but urine is also tells you sign of dehydration. We have a saying at camp, "If it's clear, have no fear." The darker the urine, the more dehydrated they are. As it worsens, the subject will get a sharp, painful headache which then leads to feeling nauseous and a lack of appetite. In the worst case, the person vomits and stops sweating. That's very bad. At that point they are most definitely in the care of the Health Officer.

Treatments:

If they are thirsty, make them drink. Suggest water breaks every 10-15 minutes depending on the heat. If they have dry eyes, a headache, or stomachache, have the person sit in a cool place whether it's in the shade or indoor have have the sip water. Guzzling water is BAD. Sipping water every few minutes will absorb into your body instead of going straight to your stomach (which will make them feel even worse.) If they've vomited make them drink tiny sips of water. If they can't hold it down and aren't sweating, then a trip to the hospital and a meeting with an IV is in order.

Thankfully, the past two years have been great for customer hydration. Last year, I don't think anyone even threw up. I'm known as the water Nazi at camp. Heh, heh.

That's what I know anyways. I give this shpeel to all my nature walk classes before we go on the walk or go fishing.

~Calen

I don't think those sympthoms are necessarily (always) dehydratioon. I've fainted once in my life (by the grace of God I didn't hit the nearby window), and come close several other times, with basically the symptoms mentioned (lightheadedness, seeing "stars" and starting to "black out"---from the peripheral vision inward) plus (the symptom I've learned to look for) unusual redness (from blood pooling there) in my hands, but with me (though I was probably mildly dehydrated, like most people are) the reason is usually (thought to be) primarily low blood sugar. (The one time I fainted, I'd only had a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast, it was the last class of the day before lunch---and we had the later lunch period---and it was choir and the director had us standing up the whole hour that day.) I concur with the prescription for getting to the floor, but as alternatives add getting one's head between one's knees or (in very mild cases like mine, as a first treatment) shaking out the legs, bending the knees, moving the arms, etc., to get blood moving again.

*shudders as she remembers her hideous ordeal with dehydration *

Good notes, all.

Shockingly, thought, it can happen very fast, which is why I'm not quite sure how to inflict it upon my characters because it still confuses me. I became severely dehydrated on a school fieldtrip when I was 10 (still in public school). In fact, I had to be hospitalized and pumped full of IVs. My own experience makes me hesitant to use it in my books because it was so confusing and not as cut and dry as I had thought. *shrugs *

Thanks, everybody!

So, we've learned that dehydration, if chronic, affects your physical appearance, basically making your skin contract. And, apparently, it affects your blood flow. (Interesting about the dizziness and blacking out. That used to happen to me all the time, and I thought something was wrong with me. )

I deal with minor dehydration all the time. One obvious symptom: hearing water, seeing water, or touching water makes me crave drinking it. This only happens when I'm dehydrated, and it's a signal to go get a drink. Another symptom: when I'm properly hydrated, I love salty, buttery club crackers, or a spoonful of peanut butter. But when those things don't appeal to me, that means I need water.

Our bodies are always working to keep your salt levels and your water levels correct. When your salt is low, you crave salt, and when your water is low, you get thirsty. This balance can be tricky to maintain in extreme conditions.

When I was about thirteen, I got to go along on a fossil dig in the desert mountains of northwestern Colorado. We had to live outside, with only tents and canvas for shade. It was so hot and so dry that you couldn't feel yourself sweating (because of rapid evaporation). I did as I was told and drank bottle after bottle of water during the day, but on the third day, I got nauseous and light headed. The more experienced adults told me this was common in these conditions, and they had me rest and eat salty things, and drink GatoradeGatorade Sports Drink is formulated to contain the "salts" (electrolytes) your body needs to keep your levels balanced. as well as water. Finally, by the end of the day, my levels were back in balance and I felt fine.

Yeah, too much water is a problem too, if you don't have the right mineral contents in your system (too much water flushes them out, in essence, creating unbalance). This takes a lot of water though. I wonder if that is what happened to you, Aemi?

Yeah, maybe. That makes sense.

Oh dear. I made a mistake concerning my information. Actually, the whole headache-screaming-ambulance-tests deal was due to something they never figured out. But due to dehydration, my sister did suffer headaches and a lot of vomiting. If she ever played too hard one day, she would throw up quite a bit in the days following.

I’m like a snowman. Once it gets hot I start to melt.

The best example of dehydration I have happened in a football game. In Iowa, we can have hot and humid weather. During the game, even though the sun had set, the heat was oppressive and muggy. My uniform and shoes were drenched in sweat and my skin felt extremely hot. Halfway through the game I got sick and had to pull myself out. I found a drain and just started throwing up into it, mostly water. The funny part was our crowed cheered me on as I puked my guts out. I felt great once I was done, drank some water and ran back onto the field. Huge mistake as I had literally just emptied my water reserves.

A few plays later I was involved in a tackle and as I tried to get off the ground both of my calves cramped. My feet locked so my toes were pointed down. I had cramps before, usually lasting only a few seconds before I stretched it out, but this was different. The pain just did not stop and I could not move my feet.

My coach yelled at me to stand on my tiptoes to use my body weight to force my feet straight. I did but it didn’t work. I jumped onto my back and our trainer tried to force my foot straight to stretch the muscle, but she couldn’t and called the coaches over as she wasn’t strong enough to budge my foot. People in the stands said it looked like apples were sticking out from under the skin in my calves.

Then they told my to straighten my legs out and as soon as I did my hips and thighs locked up. My entire lower body was one giant cramp. The pain felt incredibly sharp and intense, located deep within the muscle groups, remained constant in its intensity and did not subside until we finally stretched out the muscle. I was done for the rest of the game. Just the slightest downward motion of my foot caused my calves to cramp. It was one of my top 5 most painful experiences.

I weighed myself after the game and found I had lost 20 pounds, about 10% of my body weight. Bruises formed in the areas where the cramps occurred and a deep soreness lingered in my muscles. It took days before I was able to function 100%.

Yeah, That was bad.

So, dehydration causes cramps. I already sort of knew that, but that was a very powerful lesson to all of us.
Thanks for sharing.

Once I was on a hike, you know that kind pleasant through the woods, but it wasn't. I hadn't had a sip of water that day, that day it was 40 Degrees Celsius. The tree's didn't do anything, it was spring so there weren't that many leaves. We had been hiking for about an hour, when I got really dizzy, I shook it off and kept going, I started to get tired (I can normally do 2-3 hours of hiking before I get tired) so I was really confused, I started to get cramps in my legs, and I was sweating a lot, not just a little trickle, but when you go to wipe your forehead, your hand gets wet and shiny, my hands dried and started to crack from all the salt, by this time I was really falling behind. Being the youngest my family thought it was normal, so they just waited for me to catch up, I started to get dizzy again, and get a headache, I told my Mom how I was feeling, she just gave me a bottle of water (which I downed) and we kept going, it took about another half hour before I felt better.

So if you want to remain strong and healthy during a hike, you must drink water. Good tip for our fantasy characters.

Wow, Roager. That was quite the experience.

Does anyone know why sometimes dehydration causes just nausea, and sometimes just weakness, and sometimes both along with other possible symptoms?

A lot of factors are involved and sometimes it is entirely dependent on the persons' body.

Hyponatremia/salt depletion is one cause. It is when the sodium content in your blood is lower than normal. When you sweat it's not just water, there's salt and potassium as well. When you're low on sodium, potassium, your body does not react well, and it can cause nausea, weakness, cramps, headaches, etc.

Another is that there's water in your blood. As you lose water the fluid in your blood is affected which then messes with your blood pressure. The body compensates by constricting blood vessels as it tries to maintain normal blood pressure, which in turn limits the amount of blood reaching your brain, limbs, and organs. The more dehydrated you = more constricted the vessels = limited blood to organs = weakness, confusion, headaches, lightheaded, etc.

If you google dehydration there is a great article at medicinenet.com that goes into detail on the causes and symptoms of dehydration.

That article was interesting.

It makes sense that the different symptoms would be caused by the dehydration affecting the body in different ways.

Oh! This is just the thread I need! Does anybody mind if the busy novelist jumps in at the end with a question without having read the entire thread first?

My question is specific to Peter's Angel... I have a poor enslaved soul who goes without water for a whole day. However, he doesn't do anything the entire day. Literally he sits and waits the entire day out. It's springtime, so it's not incredibly hot. Should he be showing extensive signs of dehydration, or is it okay if he doesn't experience anything too serious since he didn't do any work or spend excessive time in the heat? He experiences some aches and cramps, kind of just a miserable mess, but nothing serious. Do you think that's acceptable?

Thankee kindly.

If your character has not done any sort strenuous activity and is in a cool environment then I'd expect him to show very few signs of dehydration apart from having cottonmouth and a sensation of thirst. Cramping is usually associated with some sort of muscle activity or from extreme water loss. If he's done nothing all day it's hit or miss with cramping. He'll probably experience lightheadedness and maybe a headache if he's not used to going a day without water.

Yes, if he's not doing anything, I'd expect him to be very thirsty, and maybe feel tired and listless.

Excellent. That works out just perfectly. Thank you so much for helping me out!

You're very welcome!

I've got a story!
SO! My youth group was staying the weekend at a lodge in the mountains (I loved it so much, my characters visit it in my series!) Anyway, we went hiking. At first I was fine, because it was all downhill. I didn't realize until later that that meant the trip back would be uphill.
I had only brought one bottle of water, and I drank about... maybe half? on the way down, then we went swimming in a waterfall ( ^u^ ) for a while, but of course I didn't drink the water.
So on the way back up, (it's late June at this time by the way, very hot in Virginia) I begin to get tired, but I'm not sure why. Maybe I'm just too fat to handle the journey? (I'm not really fat. Chubby, but not fat. Just so you know.) So I get a branch to use as a walking stick. Someone sees that I'm struggling, and offers to take my bag for me since I was carrying some other people's stuff as well as my own. I gave it to him, and kept on trudgin', stopping to rest more and more frequently. I didn't even really feel thirsty so I didn't flag down my friend with my bag. Eventually, because the leaders at my church don't know how to take care of the kids they're supposed to take care of (I'm kidding here, it was just a mistake, LOL), I was left behind, and I couldn't catch up. I actually hallucinated, mistaking bushes and piles of leaves or sticks, or logs, for bears, murderers, and even lost orphan children. It was soooo creepy!!!!! I kept doing double, triple, and even quadruple takes to reassure myself that I was just mistaken. After a while I came to a fork in the path, and luckily took the correct direction. I met up with my youth group in the parking lot at the trailhead, waiting for some others that had gone a different way. They hadn't even noticed I was missing! I sat with some of my friends on the ground and drained my friend's water bottle, then realized that I was thirsty, and drank another friend's water, not knowing where my bag was. When it was given back to me, I drained that one too, and still felt thirsty.
On a side note, the water felt like life flowing back into my veins, even though it was warm from being out in the 90+ degree weather for hours.

@Gandalf the Chocolate
Wow... that must have been so scary!

Something similar happened to me.
I got dehydrated when I was at camp and it was pretty bad. I almost felt dizzy and they gave me a chair and I sank into it shakily. They knew right away it was dehydration and had me drink a whole water bottle. I shook(it was a cold room but it felt even colder to me) and my forehead felt hot and weird almost like a headache and I drank like two and a half water-bottles before I stopped shaking(I'm thin so I guess it depends on the size of the person how much water they need to drink). That's what it was like for me.

*grin*

After all these fascinating stories, I think I'll have one of my characters suffer dehydration instead of starvation! It's prolly more realistic anyway. Is dehydration easier to induce than starvation, does anyone know?

You definitely dehydrate faster than you starve, so in terms of time, dehydration can be accomplished more quickly. IIRC from school, the human body can go (on average) 3 weeks without food before death but only 3 days without water. (Obviously you'd get dehydrated and ill long before that.) Just as a reference.

Thanks, Brey, it's helpful to have the actual stats.