You may not be sick, you might just simply be thirsty.
The purpose of this blog article is to address the common health and wellness issue of bodily dehydration. Dehydration is the harmful reduction of water in the body. Many individuals are dehydrated and do not know it. There are several no cost, simple ways to measure or gauge dehydration in the body. By measuring hydration, it provides an opportunity to prevent acute dehydration. For individuals who do not like to drink or consume water daily, they could be creating an opportunity for sickness and disease to invade their bodies.
No other liquid can take the place of water. God made water. Man made everything else we drink. Therefore, with seventy-five percent of our body being composed of water and eighty-five percent of our brain consisting of water, it is obvious that we need and must treat it as the life-giving element that it truly is and stay hydrated. “Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.” John 4:10 The prophet Jeremiah and the wisest man in the Bible, Solomon both spoke of the fountain of living waters.
I share with readers my personal experience with suffering from dehydration. It occurred in 1992 in the town of Zweiburken, Germany. It was an unusually warm day for that location. I played two tennis matches in a tournament and at the end of the second match, I became fatigued. Nonetheless, I was able to overcome my opponent and qualified to play in the tournament’s final the following day. I recall feeling so sick that I was unsure if I would be able to get out of bed the next morning much less participating in a tennis tournament. Survival instincts set in and I researched dehydration and gained a lot of knowledge that continues to aid me in my health and wellness journey.
| Signs & Symptoms of Dehydration | Signs & Symptoms of Dehydration | Signs & Symptoms of Dehydration |
| Muscle or Body Aches | Headaches | Fatigue |
| Sunken Eyes | Very Dry Skin | Feeling Dizzy |
| Rapid Heartbeat | Rapid Breathing | Dry Mouth |
| Inability to Sweat | Inability to Produce Tears | Sleepiness |
| Confusion | Irritability | Fainting |
| Morning Sickness | Cholesterol Increase | Not Urinating |
| High Blood Pressure | Chronic Irregularity | Arthritis Joint Pain |
| Muscle Cramps | Dark Urine |
With the absence of medications and or vitamin supplements, dark urine provides a strong sign that your body is dehydrated. Pinch the skin on your arm below or above the elbow slightly to ascertain how much flesh you can hold between your fingers. The more skin you can hold between your fingers the more dehydrated you are.
In October 2007, I was blessed to attend the Power of Deliverance Church when the guest speaker, Dr. Rita Twiggs, author of the book, “Drink Water and Live” delivered that message. Some key points from that message: “The human body is 75% water – The brain is 15% tissue mass surrounded by 85% water. Water helps create energy, transport messages from the brain to the body, and regulate bodily functions. Every function of the body is monitored and joined to the efficient flow of water, and ‘Water distribution’ is the only way of making sure that elements such as hormones, chemical messages and nutrients reach vital organs. These organs then release other necessary agents into the flowing water to go to areas of the body that need them. Water shortages in different body areas will manifest in varying symptoms, signals, and complications, which currently are being labeled as diseases.”
Dr. Twiggs further addressed the importance of water in the body, “Chronic cellular dehydration is painful and can prematurely kill individuals. Its’ initial outward manifestations have until now, been labeled as diseases of unknown origin. Traditional medicine resorts to using chemicals and procedures to deal with what is chronic dehydration in many instances. Perhaps the greatest health discovery of all times is that ‘water’ is God’s natural medication for a variety of health conditions. Everybody knows water is good for the body, but everyone doesn’t know what happens to the body if it does not receive its required daily supply of water. In the same way we have hunger pain signals, so it is with thirst. Now, the last outward sign of dehydration is usually dry mouth.”
One recommendation that she made in her book was to consume half one’s body weight in ounces of water and ½ teaspoon of salt for every ten glasses of water, just to keep our bodies fluid enough to perform necessary functions effectively.
In addition to learning from Dr. Twiggs, I learned a lot of practical life and health and wellness skills from my mother and grandmother. We were taught to pay close attention to the color of our urine because it was a gauge to assess the status of our health and wellness. When mother noticed that our urine was too dark, she brought out the quinine tonic. As I matured, I became more knowledgeable of why we were routinely given quinine as children. Quinine was a common over the counter non-prescription tonic given to children especially during the winter. Today, quinine is a prescription drug used to treat malarial fever and leg cramps. (Malarial fever is more rampant in areas that do not have sufficient clean drinking water.) “A hydrated body produces clear, colorless urine. A somewhat dehydrated body produces yellow urine. A severely dehydrated body produces orange or dark-colored urine.”
My personal experience and my experience as a care giver for elderly patients, taught me first-hand the importance of drinking water and staying hydrated.
Therefore, I share with Dr. Twiggs’ testimony and recommendations on drinking water from her book “Drink Water and Live.”
Source: Drink Water and Live, by Dr. Rita Twiggs
Ministry of Healing, E. G. White