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Warning about drinking too much water during a marathon

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/sport...4c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

He knows the danger: in their zeal to avoid becoming dehydrated, runners may end up drinking so much that they dilute their blood. Water rushes into cells, including cells of the brain. The swollen brain cells press against the skull, and the result can be fatal. The resulting condition is known as hyponatremia - too much water.

And then this

That is what happened to Mark Robinson, a 27-year-old computer programmer from West Roxbury, Mass., who sees his story as a cautionary tale.

The day of the 2004 Boston Marathon dawned unusually hot. The race was on April 19, but the temperature was projected to reach nearly 90 degrees. Robinson was concerned. It was his first marathon, he had been training for six months, and he wanted to run it in four hours or less. "I sweat a lot," he said. With weather like that, he worried he might become dehydrated. So he tried to make sure he drank enough.

"I drank more than a gallon of water before the race, and then at every rest stop I would stop and have a couple of drinks of water," he said. He was on pace until Mile 19 when, suddenly, he felt nauseous and his legs began to cramp. He forced himself to continue, but by Mile 23 he could no longer run. "I tried to power-walk it in," Robinson said.

His parents met him at the finish line, bringing water. He drank two quarts, but he felt worse than ever. Not only was he vomiting and having diarrhea, Robinson said, but "I felt spacey, out of it, almost like I was on drugs."

His parents got a wheelchair and took him to the medical tent, where the person doing triage at the entrance asked if he could stand on his own. He could. He said he was told, "We have people here who are lying down," and was sent away. His parents helped him walk to the subway and took him to their home in Wayland, Mass. All the while, Robinson was drinking water and drinking Gatorade and vomiting.

Robinson said: "I felt completely mentally out of it. It was a strange sensation. Deep down, I knew something really, really wasn't right. It was like a feeling of impending doom. My father wanted me to take a bath, but I didn't want to be alone. I looked at my dad and he was talking and his mouth was kind of going," but, Robinson said, he could no longer hear what his father was saying.

Suddenly, Robinson screamed, leaped into the air, and fell down on his shoulder, breaking it. He lay on the floor, unconscious and no longer breathing.

His mother called 911 and a helicopter arrived. On the flight to Boston Medical Center, Robinson received intravenous fluids; the medical team thought he was dehydrated.

He ended up in a coma, on life support, and woke up four days later.

That made me wince.


Cliffs

Eight ounces of fluid every 20 minutes is plenty.
 
You don't have to be running a marathon to suffer the condition described in the OP.

Scary stuff - but I guess it proves too much of anything, even water, can be bad for you.
 
I've heard of this happening, but I've always read that it would take an insane amount of water (like 3-4 gallons per day) to cause any harm. Since I have never ran a marathon, I don't really have a clue, but it seems even 3 gallons would be really tough to get down.
 
I'm waiting for this to start happening to high school football players now followed by lawsuits.
 
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Originally posted by: panipoori
This happened with some girl who did Extacy too.

WTF?!?!

Well its more of a sideeffect of extacy, they get really hyper and dance alot, and drink tons of water because they become afraid of getting dehydrated.
 
Water intoxication is hard to do. I mean, you have to work at it. If you werent doing alot of physical ativity it would probably take a day to overdose on water. Constantly drinking, never stopping.

You need to drink water whie on Extacy because you get dehydrated. It's hard to control and people end up drinking too much water. They think, its jsut water, how can it hurt me? HAHA WRONG BITCH!
 
in order to have hyponatremia, you need excessive sodium loss along with excessive water intake. People get it during marathons b/c they sweat a ton and only drink water. If you are not working out (aka sweating), you will NOT get hyponatremia. This is assuming you have normally functioning kidneys. All that will happen is you will be peeing all the time and it will be mostly water.

 
Originally posted by: SLU MD
in order to have hyponatremia, you need excessive sodium loss along with excessive water intake. People get it during marathons b/c they sweat a ton and only drink water. If you are not working out (aka sweating), you will NOT get hyponatremia. This is assuming you have normally functioning kidneys. All that will happen is you will be peeing all the time and it will be mostly water.

You can have an increase in sodium concentration as long as the TBW increase in a greater amount, or sodium concentration can remain the same while TBW increases slightly to moderately, or a decrease in both as long as the sodium concentration decrease to a greater extent, or TBW and TBS can remain unchanged with a shift of water from intracellular to extracellular compartments.
 
Man that was a harsh read, they just kept pumping liquids at him and he already had too much..

his body was like VOMIT, i dont want any more fluids, VOMIT
 
I drink plenty of water, but not nearly that much. I work at a warehouse moving stock around, a lot of it is physical, heavy boxes (100lbs+) and many of them, so I sweat pretty much the entire 8 hours I'm working, and I get dehydrated quick. I bring a Powerade sized bottle (2 qts.) and probably refill it once or twice during the night, but that's mostly it for the day.
 
when I was in high school a couple kids drank water until they threw up for fun...just goes to show you how smart some are
 
Originally posted by: panipoori
Originally posted by: sygyzy
Originally posted by: panipoori
This happened with some girl who did Extacy too.

WTF?!?!

Well its more of a sideeffect of extacy, they get really hyper and dance alot, and drink tons of water because they become afraid of getting dehydrated.

e dehydrates you so you drink a lot because you are super thirsty. It has nothing to do with fear, its the actual fact of being dehydrated.
 
actually chicken soup is often recommended. works like the sports drinks without too much sugar.
 
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