She is of course correct that doing something is psychologically important to the patient. The part I am focusing on is that the benefit to the patient is not only that they have something to do, but that guiding them to doing something that is at worst likely harmless we prevent them from doing something that may cause harm. And honestly make it easier on ourselves. You have no idea how hard (and time consuming) it is to convince some patients and parents of patients that doing nothing is the best course of action. My job is much harder if I don’t have something to do to say to put in the space after I answer that no I am not prescribing an antibiotic, Tamiflu, or any other medicine for this self-limited viral illness. “Tender loving care, honey off a spoon, weak tea with honey, and a little chicken soup wouldn’t hoit.* Call us if …” plays better (and bluntly faster, which matters when the season hits a busy office hard) than “No medicines, nothing you can do that will make a difference. Call us if …”
Just being honest here. But be aware that there are quite a few primary care providers out there who just prescribe the unneeded antibiotic or Tamiflu as the quicker approach to a satisfied patient. (And the parents seeing those docs for themselves or having past pediatricians who played it that way makes my job of good antibiotic stewardship even harder.)
A doctor-friend once told me the advice to drink lots of fluids is given because people in general don’t drink enough fluids. Under normal conditions, your body can deal with this OK. But when stressed by a cold, it’s better to keep fully hydrated so your body can focus on the cold.
20 years ago, maybe. Maybe. Then the “8 glasses” myth started, and now I see more people slightly overhydrated than dehydrated.
If you’re a healthy person with good lung and kidney function, drink water as your primary beverage (or better yet, only beverage) and your body will signal you when it needs more by making you thirsty. If you drink soda and coffee and other things with solutes… well, then it’s a little harder to tell if your body is asking for water, sugar or caffeine.
Bottom line: watch your pee. It should be about the color of lemonade. Darker, and you need more water. Colorless, and you need to back off on the water.
Which lemonade? Because I know quite a wide range of colors for drinks by that name and my pee usually isn’t close to any of them (I sure don’t remember it ever being light pink).
I do not think it is or was true at all (no cite to offer though).
Our bodies have been pretty finely tuned by selection over many many many years to maintain water balance. A pretty basic job from early organisms on. Barring a real problem, like a hormonal, brain, or kidney issue, or inability to get to appropriate fluids, or psychiatric issue that makes one choose to inappropriately drink, our systems work pretty damn well to keep hydration levels just fine. Even in very hot environs.
In fact even the advice for hydration during endurance activity is increasingly moving towards letting thirst be your guide, with individuals over-hydrating and diluting out their sodium levels with serious consequences as the cautionary tale to the keep your pee light when running a marathon advice.
I respectfully disagree with WhyNot here: bottom line, pay attention to your thirst and drink when thirsty and don’t if not.
Mine too. I also stopped taking Nyquil and instead, starting throwing a shot of whiskey into my tea. It has the exact same effect only it doesn’t knock me out for like, 16 hours.
I’ve managed to limit my gout outbreaks to once a year, even though I drink a ton of beer and haven’t changed my diet. I drink an obscene volume of water, on the advice of my physician. (He basically said if I refused to make the necessary changes I might be able to diurese myself by over-consuming water)
I don’t think we disagree, really. But I work with more elders than you do, I believe, and the thirst mechanism can get a little wonky with age, tooth decay, gingivitis, denture wear, etc. That population I do see sometimes hypernatremic ever so slightly, while they tell me they’re not thirsty. That’s why I give a two item rubric. I actually mistyped in an edit by phone, and meant to list both thirst (primary) and urine color (secondary) as assessment items. Not urine color instead of thirst. Sorry about that.
Not really. Dehydration is less an exercise in temperature than in, well, exercise. And we get our share of >100° days, anyhow.
I also work first aid in several climates. In a camping situation, I see more actual dehydration in the 80s and low 90s than when it’s hotter. When it’s Damn Hot, your body and everyone around you is constantly reminding you to hydrate. Just a little bit cooler, and people forget to drink, but are still sweating and breathing and losing water.
But air conditioning makes the temperature irrelevant for most of us in our daily lives.
I suspect you may be conflating “cold” with “flu.” The second one can be expected to include diarrhea among its primary symptoms; the first one, not so much.
You may be conflating the flu with gastroenteritis, which is sometimes called “stomach flu.” Influenza is a respiratory illness whose typical symptoms are fever, cough, weakness and sore throat, often with sudden onset. “Stomach flu” is a misnomer - it’s a label that people attach to a large number of illnesses with similar symptoms, and has nothing to do with true influenza.
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