Hydration… SO important!

Author: Shannon Miller

I’ve been talking about hydration in several of my posts; especially early on. I knew going into chemotherapy that staying hydrated was of utmost importance. I also knew it would be a constant battle for me. I have never been good at staying hydrated. I get busy and forget to drink my fluids or I get nauseous and can’t even imagine drinking anything.

Of course it’s a downward spiral from there, as I found out very quickly. Dehydration makes nausea worse, which makes it easier to become more dehydrated. Blood pressure can drop making you dizzy or faint. And there’s the other issue of having all of these chemicals sitting in your body. You need to flush them through so they aren’t damaging your kidneys and bladder.

If you’re having a really difficult time with keeping up your fluids you might ask your doctor if you can receive some extra IV fluid on your chemo days or even during off days. This has been incredibly helpful to me especially on my rough week, where I have chemo 5 days straight. I know that week is going to be particularly nasty and I can rarely keep much down. It takes an extra hour of time for the IV, but at least I know that my body has received a decent amount of fluids that day.

I’ve also found that I have to change up my liquids. Some days I’m okay with water, others it needs to be Gatorade or even apple juice. I even tried my son’s Pedialyte® for a bit. Whatever works.