Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

slate.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 145 posts

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#101

Post by masklinn »

J_Sherz wrote: post #80
masklinn wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article isn't about IV being ineffective, rehydration IV are absolutely effective. The article is about them being un necessary unless absolutely humongous amounts of rehydration are necessary (emergency rehydration), "modern" oral rehydration is amply sufficient, cheaper, simpler, and less risky (ORS requires clean water but IV requires aseptic fluid and procedure and even then there's a risk of infection).

Perfect answer, relevant link for those that are interested: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419333/

ORT is even recommended for cholera (to upgrade to IV on a case-by-case basis if necessary), that's about as bad as things can get dehydration wise.

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#102

Post by gasgasgas »

teslabox wrote: post #3

> Better yet, we’ve learned since that you can still get most of the benefit without WHO-approved stockpiles of ORS. You can use a number of widely available commercial products that essentially replicate ORS, from sports drinks to Pedialyte. You can also make good oral rehydration solutions yourself at home for pennies: Just take 32 ounces of water and add 6 teaspoons of sugar and a half-teaspoon of salt. There are…

Google shikanji.

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#103

Post by masklinn »

33W wrote: post #95
jtuente wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some quick googling estimates 6 tsp of sugar is about 25 grams or 100 calories. For comparison, a 32oz bottle of Gatorade G2 (low calorie) has about 19 grams of sugar, and a 32oz bottle of normal Gatorade has about 56 grams. Adding - 1/2 tsp of salt is 2.5 grams of which it is 1 gram of sodium. G2 - 435mg sodium, 120mg potassium; normal - 400mg, 100mg.

Looking at the info for pedialyte, 12 oz contains 370mg of sodium, and 9g of sugar. So for 32oz, that 986mg sodium, and 24g sugar, which seems spot on to the articles recommended ratios. https://pedialyte.com/products/classic/mixed-fruit

The zinc is also recommended against diarrhoea: http://www.who.int/elena/titles/bbc/zinc_diarrhoea/en/

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#104

Post by Slansitartop »

gasgasgas wrote: post #98
Slansitartop wrote: post #82

Hospitals also insanely overcharge for IVs. A few years ago I was in the hospital, and I knew I could keep down oral re-hydration solution. The hospital put me on a saline IV anyway. When I got the bill, the IV line item was $2000! Insurance discounts brought that down to $200. I paid all that for a couple dollars of salt water I didn't need.

The charges are inflated because of insurance. The actual paid amount is less.

The actual paid amount was $200, which is still excessive, especially for something I didn't really need.

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#105

Post by masklinn »

mabbo wrote: post #87
nradov wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would drinking oral rehydration solution mixed with vodka prevent the hangover from occurring in the first place?

... I've done this. At the start of my bachelor party (and possibly later on that night? It gets blurry) we brought workout hydration powder, the kind you use during and after a gym session. Drank a lot of it ideally to prevent or reduce hangovers. I have no idea how much it helped, because I was still hungover the next day.

As J_Sherz noted above, hydration before or during drinking isn't very helpful as alcohol is diuretic, so chances are you'll literally be pissing it away. You want to rehydrate afterwards, after you've stopped drinking and when you wake up (during the night if you wake up to piss, and the day after).

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#106

Post by masklinn »

dwyerm wrote: post #85
amluto wrote: post #68

You can buy approved oral rehydration powder pretty cheaply [1]. I keep it around for backpacking trips and such. Also, I've heard, but have not verified, that coconut water is a decent approximation. I'm not sure if this is true, but it's certainly delicious.

I second this. Because it keeps forever and is relatively small, I keep it around in the medicine cabinet. If you've ever had a guest lose a fight with a Norovirus, you appreciate having some of it right at hand. By the way, the Amazon product searches for this return a cesspool of magic woo. I recommend going to your local drug store, looking for the powdered Pedialyte, then looking in the meter-or-so surrounding th…

> I second this. Because it keeps forever and is relatively small, I keep it around in the medicine cabinet. If you've ever had a guest lose a fight with a Norovirus, you appreciate having some of it right at hand.

Then again sugar and salt also keep forever. I guess the sealed unidoses help though.

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#107

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

aidenn0 wrote: post #66
mabbo wrote: post #9

> You can also make good oral rehydration solutions yourself at home for pennies: Just take 32 ounces of water and add 6 teaspoons of sugar and a half-teaspoon of salt. > resist the temptation to drink at a normal rate... An ounce at a time every few minutes This should be something everyone learns. Many common headaches are just dehydration. When you've got a cold or flu, dehydration is common and makes you feel eve…

Quick tip: for kids, you can make popsicles out of the solution, which will moderate the rate at which they drink it.

The salt won't freeze though?

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#108

Post by scrooched_moose »

aidenn0 wrote: post #66
mabbo wrote: post #9

> You can also make good oral rehydration solutions yourself at home for pennies: Just take 32 ounces of water and add 6 teaspoons of sugar and a half-teaspoon of salt. > resist the temptation to drink at a normal rate... An ounce at a time every few minutes This should be something everyone learns. Many common headaches are just dehydration. When you've got a cold or flu, dehydration is common and makes you feel eve…

Quick tip: for kids, you can make popsicles out of the solution, which will moderate the rate at which they drink it.

They also make Pedialyte popsicles. Great for kids and hungover adults.

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#109

Post by Cw67NTN8F »

mabbo wrote: post #9

> You can also make good oral rehydration solutions yourself at home for pennies: Just take 32 ounces of water and add 6 teaspoons of sugar and a half-teaspoon of salt. > resist the temptation to drink at a normal rate... An ounce at a time every few minutes This should be something everyone learns. Many common headaches are just dehydration. When you've got a cold or flu, dehydration is common and makes you feel eve…

To make kids drink something...would juice /soda and some type of salty chips or crackers work? They get some sugar and water from the drink and some salt from the crackers, potato chips.

Simply because they are probably more likely to drink and eat that :)

Re: IV Bags May Not Be Necessary to Rehydrate Patients

#110

Post by LeifCarrotson »

nscalf wrote: post #88

I think the best place that this is illustrated is in the UFC. When they banned rehydrating through IV's (I read they test for it by checking for by products of rubber in the blood, which presumably would have come from running liquid through rubber tubes into the arm) we expected to see the entirety of the sport move up in weight classes. It was not a big secret that everyone was cutting large amounts of weight to g…

It seems that the ban would be more effective if, rather than banning a specific rehydration method, they banned the process of cutting weight through dehydration. A cheap urine refractometer costs $25 - you can grab one yourself on Amazon if you like - and would tell you whether the athlete at the scales was dehydrated (and also give you a urine sample to check for other banned substances).

Sure, then athletes might show up to the scales hungry, but that's more healthy than sweating.

And by 'they', sure, the UFC could make a big change...but where this really needs to start is the high-school wrestling mat, where you have kids establishing a culture of 'grit' as defined by running in hoodies. I haven't been a wrestler myself - I was a track kid in high school - but I can vividly remember swiftly passing our varsity wrestling team during winter training on the indoor track in our gym. They shuffled along in their uniform, heavy sweats, fists bunched up to their chests (from too much bench pressing and curling and not enough triceps/lats work) while I wore nothing but some short shorts and was dripping with sweat anyways.

UFC fighters are appropriately compensated and informed of their risks. High school kids are not.

State wrestling finals for my state are in two days. It's 11:45 here, so right this minute, a lot of kids are just wrapping up their lunch and some of the best wrestlers across the state are going back to class hungry and dangerously thirsty - on purpose - so they can make weight this weekend.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2555772-weight-cutting-so...

Post reply on HN