[at-l] Dehydration Questions for 'The Doc-In-The-House'

["David Hicks" <daveh@usit.net>]

I have always relied on plain filtered water, or iodine treated water w/
something for flavor when hiking or working in the heat.

However, there seemed to be a consensus at a Wilderness First Aid class
which I attended this past weekend that a re-hydration drink was needed.

The instructor suggested any bottled commercial "re-hydration" drink be cut
by at less an equal amount of water and the brand named mix powders be mixed
with two to five times the called for amount of water.

There was then a discussion of homemade re-hydration drink.  Someone (not
the instructor) suggested that when making homemade "G----aid" you should
use salt substitute (potassium sulfate, I think it is) rather than salt.  I
seem to remember reading somewhere that your body's chemistry has an
automatic link between potassium and sodium and that taking potassium w/o
sodium or when your sodium is depleted can cause problems.

What's your take on all this?  Do you have a recipe for homemade
re-hydration drink?

Also, there were a lot of horror stories about how much coffee, tea, cola,
etc will dehydrate you being thrown around.  How much additional water would
you need to drink (assuming you have already re-hydrated your activity level
requirements of "x" amount of water), if you drink 8 oz of coffee, tea,
cola, etc?

Chainsaw

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