It's not been the start to the new year we wanted.
My wife has caught a bug or something that has caused her to have a constant headache and sickness since the 29th of December. For three days she couldn't even keep a glass of water down, making it very difficult to keep her hydrated.
In the end, on New Years day, we went to see the out of hours GP at the hospital while a friend looked after the children. He gave her an anti sickness injection so she could at least get hydrated. Since then she has improved a little, drank water but still not eaten anything. She's had to miss the first couple of days at her new job and she's really gutted about this - not the first impression you want to make.
It does make you grateful about certain things though, the fact that we know how to treat something that we see as simple like hydration when your ill. Just the knowledge that keeping hydrated is important is enough to prevent sickness becoming more serious (kidney damage, death, etc) and the knowledge that we now know to give salts at the same time has save millions around the world.
Taking a solution with the right levels of salt and sugar can increase water absorption into the body by 2 - 3 times, but if the level is wrong then if can exacerbate dehydration.
We buy ours in ready made packs that we mix with water (and normally a little squash to make it taste better), it's worth having a good stock of these as they don't go off very fast, but it's simple to make your own in an emergency.
1 Litre of Fresh water
4 tablespoons of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
The official stuff has more in it, UNICEF's ingredients list reads like this
2.6 grams of salt
2.9 grams of trisodium citrate dihydrate
1.5 grams potassium chloride
13.5 grams anhydrous glucose (a sugar)
1 liter of clean water
When I was looking for information on this I came across Tokyo's Disaster Preparedness Website where they have a free PDF download on how to deal with a disaster and respond to an emergency. Really worth a read, click the link here.
Have you ever had to make your own rehydration salts?
An awful lot of people seem to have this bug. Hope she gets well soon.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of other illnesses
ReplyDeleteAvian flu found in wales !
Worrying
Very worrying!
DeleteI'll keep this in mind next time I have a hangover ;)
ReplyDeleteHope your wife is feeling better soon and your family is well. This has been a pretty bad month for everyone it seems.
They sell something in bottles here, probably the same stuff only. Haven't seen it called salts. We drink water that runs out of the ground with all kinds of things swimming in it so we probably have antibodies that attack a lot of things that enter our system, that is the hope anyway. Hope she gets well soon and the rest of you guys don't catch it.
ReplyDeleteGood advice. Thanks for the link. I hope your wife feels better real soon.
ReplyDeleteWe have stuff called Pedialyte which is used to keep a person hydrated. Can be bought at any drug store but making your own would be much cheaper. I hope your wife is feeling better soon.
ReplyDeleteI had the same bug and lost half a stone in a week, really knocked me for six, now over it, I made up a similar re hydration drink, once over the bug it was whatever I craved, honey was one of the things and bananas I assume they were because I needed a potassium top up.
ReplyDeleteHoping your wife is feeling better. That is such a terrible bug! There is nothing worse than not being able to keep even water down. You dehydrate ever so quickly and usually end up in hospital. Even worse for children.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the tips. I will save them and hopefully I will not have to use them!
Oh man, I hope she is ok now? That's terrible, poor thing. As others have said, it seems to be doing the rounds at the moment. Well done on knowing what you all do, as you say, in those situations, you need to know! We had dioralyte or similar, from when the kids were poorly and kept a stock of them, but you reminded me to get some more as when we moved they were binned from being (years) old and our of date. Another one for the grab bag?!
ReplyDeletePoor gal. Fingers crossed no one else in the family gets it. Reminds me of the Christmas we all had flu and did nothing but sip rum laced egg nog, children included.
ReplyDeleteOh no, not your wife too. I do hope your 3 littlies don't get it. Col is one week after the start of getting that bug and feeling better but lost a stone in weight and has no energy. having the background illness really made it so much worse.
ReplyDeleteKeep well Kev and take care
have they looked at the possibility that it might be hepatitis. I was like this and so ill.
ReplyDelete