Symptoms of Dehydration – All You Need to Know
Posted by Medical Fan - 23/12/08 at 09:12 am
Dehydration is the lack of enough body fluid to be able to get oxygen and nutrition for the body tissues. In general, dehydration can be solved by drinking enough water. It is important to know the symptoms of dehydration so that you can treat the disorder before it gets worse.
You can experience dehydration due to different factors such as vomiting, heat exhaustion, diarrhea, heat stroke, too much exercise, high blood sugar, taking legal and illegal drugs, drinking alcohol and certain infections.
Knowing the symptoms of dehydration early is beneficial to prevent more harmful effects. Symptoms of dehydration include headache, dizziness, difficulty to urinate, dark color of urine with strong odor, weakness, vomiting, nausea and dryness of nose and mouth.
Children can also suffer from dehydration and the symptoms include dryness of tongue and mouth, high fever, irritability or listlessness and deep eyes, cheeks or abdomen. You will notice that children with dehydration do not wet their diapers for more than three hours.
Symptoms of dehydration for older people are different compared to children and younger adults. The usual cause for dehydration of older people is the medication they take. Poor elasticity of the skin is one of the major symptoms of dehydration for elders.
Dehydration is most dangerous especially for children and may cause death in several days. Water is necessary to prevent dehydration but you need to keep the levels of electrolyte by having soups or broth that includes sodium. You must also consume fruit juices, vegetables and soft fruits.
Untreated dehydration may lead to shock and people with low blood pressure need to get fluid immediately.