Hydration
Hydration is super important and LOTS of people really do NOT get enough to drink. Some studies have found that, for example, elderly people suffering from constipation were mostly dehydrated.
If I can't eat, I focus on staying hydrated. If you are reasonably healthy, it takes at least two weeks to starve to death (it can take more for someone with a lot of mass), but you can die of dehydration in as little as two days -- or LESS in extreme heat, for example. (People sometimes just drop dead in Death Valley because they hiked it and didn't stay hydrated.)
In his late sixties, my dad had advanced colon cancer and was supposed to die. They told him "get your affairs in order" because he was not expected to survive more than a few more months.
He lived another roughly twenty years and two cancer clinics changed their practices based on how my mother treated my dad. The cancer clinic at Martin Reed Army Hospital (Ft. Benning, GA) added a German cream -- Penaten cream -- to their scar treatment regimen because dad's surgical scar healed up so nicely and the Houston Clinic in Columbus, Georgia, INTERVIEWED my mother on tape for two hours and, among other things, added Penaten cream as a thing they made available for patients to order through them (because it's a German product and not necessarily available in American stores -- I used to MAIL her Penaten cream when I lived in Germany).
So one of the things my parents did is they looked up some info and calculated how much fluid dad needed to stay hydrated based on body weight. Caffeine and alcohol DO NOT COUNT towards your total fluid intake for purposes of hydration.
You can HAVE them if you want them, but they don't count for hydration purposes. Drink SOMETHING ELSE with them to stay hydrated.
And, in fact, I have read that hangover MAY BE mostly due to dehydration and MAY BE prevented or reduced by DRINKING SOMETHING ELSE with your alcoholic beverages while you party.
My dad had a heart condition and was on medication from the time I was like seven. So roughly twenty years IIRC before he was being treated for cancer. He lost like half his body weight BEFORE being diagnosed with colon cancer and people who knew him for decades didn't recognize him.
In fact, I didn't recognize him when I went to visit him post surgery in the ICU. I was looking for his room and was SURE "This can't be the right room" because my dad was always a big guy and that's not who was in that room.
Dad had colon cancer and MOST colon cancer patients lose weight DURING treatment. He had already lost a TON of weight and likely would have died had he not been a big guy to begin with.
During his cancer treatments, my mother was putting so much weight on him that my dad's doctor YELLED at my mother to SLOW IT DOWN because the doctor was afraid she would give my dad a heart attack and kill him that way. The doctor feared the rapid weight gain would put a lot of strain on his heart while he was in a weakened state, basically.
In addition to keeping him hydrated, their policy was that if he was too nauseous to EAT, she made him a SHAKE from scratch as a meal replacement. If he wasn't TOO bad, she used like milk and quality ice cream and fresh fruit. If he was REAL BAD, she used like ice and fruit juice and frozen fruit.
I was NOT there, so I have limited info, just what I was TOLD. But knowing my mother she was super picky about the QUALITY of the ingredients and I would bet money she made the ice from filtered water and carefully picked out fresh fruit and read ALL the labels of anything she used.
On really bad days, he ate NO solid food and just had homemade meal replacement shakes made FRESH from SCRATCH in the blender by my mother.
I took care of someone after major surgery once and broke their fever by pushing fluids. I got their temp down a full degree JUST by getting them hydrated and they told me "You probably prevented post operative pneumonia" because they coughed up phlegm after I got them hydrated and their temp down.
Hydration impacts circulatory health. If you have circulation issues, you may want to work on hydration as an easy first step to take, especially if exercise is something you can't really do.
(Been there, done that. I used to joke about my "get out of bed more often fitness plan".)
Shock is a circulatory issue and during some parts of my healing journey, getting my morning hydration put me into subclinical shock and I would have to lay down for 30 or 45 minutes and work on getting warm before I could go anywhere.
If you have serious health issues and are working on improving your hydration, be prepared to deal with subclinical shock as part of the process. This may take a few weeks or even MONTHS to fully resolve, depending on the state of your health.
If I can't eat, I focus on staying hydrated. If you are reasonably healthy, it takes at least two weeks to starve to death (it can take more for someone with a lot of mass), but you can die of dehydration in as little as two days -- or LESS in extreme heat, for example. (People sometimes just drop dead in Death Valley because they hiked it and didn't stay hydrated.)
In his late sixties, my dad had advanced colon cancer and was supposed to die. They told him "get your affairs in order" because he was not expected to survive more than a few more months.
He lived another roughly twenty years and two cancer clinics changed their practices based on how my mother treated my dad. The cancer clinic at Martin Reed Army Hospital (Ft. Benning, GA) added a German cream -- Penaten cream -- to their scar treatment regimen because dad's surgical scar healed up so nicely and the Houston Clinic in Columbus, Georgia, INTERVIEWED my mother on tape for two hours and, among other things, added Penaten cream as a thing they made available for patients to order through them (because it's a German product and not necessarily available in American stores -- I used to MAIL her Penaten cream when I lived in Germany).
So one of the things my parents did is they looked up some info and calculated how much fluid dad needed to stay hydrated based on body weight. Caffeine and alcohol DO NOT COUNT towards your total fluid intake for purposes of hydration.
You can HAVE them if you want them, but they don't count for hydration purposes. Drink SOMETHING ELSE with them to stay hydrated.
And, in fact, I have read that hangover MAY BE mostly due to dehydration and MAY BE prevented or reduced by DRINKING SOMETHING ELSE with your alcoholic beverages while you party.
My dad had a heart condition and was on medication from the time I was like seven. So roughly twenty years IIRC before he was being treated for cancer. He lost like half his body weight BEFORE being diagnosed with colon cancer and people who knew him for decades didn't recognize him.
In fact, I didn't recognize him when I went to visit him post surgery in the ICU. I was looking for his room and was SURE "This can't be the right room" because my dad was always a big guy and that's not who was in that room.
Dad had colon cancer and MOST colon cancer patients lose weight DURING treatment. He had already lost a TON of weight and likely would have died had he not been a big guy to begin with.
During his cancer treatments, my mother was putting so much weight on him that my dad's doctor YELLED at my mother to SLOW IT DOWN because the doctor was afraid she would give my dad a heart attack and kill him that way. The doctor feared the rapid weight gain would put a lot of strain on his heart while he was in a weakened state, basically.
In addition to keeping him hydrated, their policy was that if he was too nauseous to EAT, she made him a SHAKE from scratch as a meal replacement. If he wasn't TOO bad, she used like milk and quality ice cream and fresh fruit. If he was REAL BAD, she used like ice and fruit juice and frozen fruit.
I was NOT there, so I have limited info, just what I was TOLD. But knowing my mother she was super picky about the QUALITY of the ingredients and I would bet money she made the ice from filtered water and carefully picked out fresh fruit and read ALL the labels of anything she used.
On really bad days, he ate NO solid food and just had homemade meal replacement shakes made FRESH from SCRATCH in the blender by my mother.
I took care of someone after major surgery once and broke their fever by pushing fluids. I got their temp down a full degree JUST by getting them hydrated and they told me "You probably prevented post operative pneumonia" because they coughed up phlegm after I got them hydrated and their temp down.
Hydration impacts circulatory health. If you have circulation issues, you may want to work on hydration as an easy first step to take, especially if exercise is something you can't really do.
(Been there, done that. I used to joke about my "get out of bed more often fitness plan".)
Shock is a circulatory issue and during some parts of my healing journey, getting my morning hydration put me into subclinical shock and I would have to lay down for 30 or 45 minutes and work on getting warm before I could go anywhere.
If you have serious health issues and are working on improving your hydration, be prepared to deal with subclinical shock as part of the process. This may take a few weeks or even MONTHS to fully resolve, depending on the state of your health.
