Drink water, drink water, drink water!

Can someone tell me if this is a Taiwan superstition or a women’s superstition or just good sound common sense?

My wife’s obsessive about reminding my daughter and me to drink water all day, every day, and if anything ever happens concerning a body (I cough, my girl sneezes, a hair falls out, a bruise appears) it’s inevitably because we didn’t drink enough water. Ok, I exaggerate slightly, but I think it’s a fair estimate that my wife mentions drinking water at least 10 times per week, but sometimes 10 times in a day.

In fact, last night my daughter was apparently telling my wife it hurt when she peed, so my wife repeated the mantra well over a dozen times, telling her – if I recall correctly – that if she doesn’t drink enough water not only may she get an infection but her pee will be thicker and will hurt when being excreted. I’m neither a doctor nor a woman, but that sounds somewhat questionable to me.

I seem to recall it being hip and trendy in the US years ago for girls/women to tote around giant water bottles wherever they went, so maybe it’s not a Taiwan thing.

Do you hear this from your wife? Or if you are a woman, is water a big issue for you? Does a failure to consume large quantities of water lead to urinary infections, pain when peeing and other maladies?

The bit about drinking more water if you have a urinary infection or feel one coming on is very good advice!

It definitely helps and it’s very common for newly arrived foreigners to get urinary infections in the summer months in Taiwan when they get dehydrated and don’t urinate often enough (the doctor told me this when I visited for the same problem, I’m obviously a guy but it’s the same issue at heart). Now if I ever feel a recurrence in the summer I drink more water and problem solved. The other thing to do is drink cranberry juice…it really works.

There is a trend from the US where you are supposed to drink litres and litres of water a day, that’s a different thing.

I agree that too little water, especially when very hot, tired or stressed out, seems problematic. But could a perfectly healthy young girl with good diet get urinary infection due to “not drinking enough water”? I don’t know. And is 8 liters per day the magic number?

As for cranberry juice, I always believed it must be true, since various girlfriends had sworn by it, but apparently doubts have now been raised.

medscape.com/viewarticle/734360

I think your daughter is older than my 2 year boy, but when he gets sick it’s always blamed on him being dehydrated. Maybe there’s something in it because when he drinks a lot he gets less sick and feels better generally. Could be a baby/toddler thing.

I thought it was 8 glasses of water not liters, so about 4 liters give or take a liter per day.

8 litres is excessive but more water early on is important…it stops it from getting worse and it rectifies itself. The point is if you feel it coming on you need to drink more water immediately to head it off at the pass. I think the idea is that the bacteria form a colony on the inside of the tract, passing water through more frequently might prevent them adhering or growing so quickly. However too much water stresses the kidneys so watch out for that. The cranberry thing worked me for me, I had a persistent infection and it cleared it up in two days (sound like a girl again, but seriously this advice above has helped me a lot). Some people are more prone to UTIs than others ,it also seems that once you have one UTI it’s easier to get more due to inflammation or scarring or some other unknown cause.

[quote=“Mother Theresa”]I agree that too little water, especially when very hot, tired or stressed out, seems problematic. But could a perfectly healthy young girl with good diet get urinary infection due to “not drinking enough water”? I don’t know. And is 8 liters per day the magic number?
[/quote]
Yes! In winters, we tend to drink much less, maybe the pee thickening thing is just a way to explain the concentrated urine, but more water is really a good thing. Up until this summer, I NEVER had a urinary infection, and I am perfectly healthy with a good diet, but even keeping pee in, i.e. not peeing for long durations leads to infections. Little girls in winters, drink less water and pee more infrequently and hence it may lead to infections. MAY being the operative word. Your wife is absolutely right, and let your girl drink more water, if you think its not beneficial it will do no harm.

This is all you need to know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNGWn-aWn5g

Good one Doc… Hydrate!

I don’t think children get UTIs quite so often as adults. It’s more than likely vulvovaginitis. It’s a common occurrence in little girls, and can happen when urine is not completely wiped away after going to the bathroom, or if soap is not properly rinsed from the crotch. It sits in the folds and irritates the tissue. Then when the little girl goes to the bathroom again, the urine runs along the irritated parts and causes pain.

Drinking more water will dilute the urine, making it less potent and burn-y on the parts (making it hurt a little bit less/less likely to occur).

If it is indeed vulvovaginitis, it usually hurts when the girl moves her legs apart, and she should be able to pee without much pain if the urine does not contact the irritated parts directly.

To make her life easier and less painful for the annoying 2-3 days before the parts are healed, you can try having her pee in the shower with feet spaced and the showerhead directly diluting the origin point of the urine.

It all comes from the “You must drink 8-glasses of water a day” myth that has been bandied about for decades. I thought it sounded like BS when I first heard it as a kid: 8 glasses of water is a LOT. Eight liters though? No way. :noway:

The body has a built-in warning mechanism that has evolved over millions of years, which tells you when your body needs water.

It’s called “thirst”.

It’s not 8 glasses, Chris, it’s 8 LITERS. :no-no:

But I agree most people have enough common sense to drink what they need when they need it, although I confess that small children are often blissfully unaware of what they should be doing.

And Loopy, thanks a lot. That sounds like very sound advice. I’ve forwarded it to my wife. :thumbsup:

[quote=“Chris”]It all comes from the “You must drink 8-glasses of water a day” myth that has been bandied about for decades. I thought it sounded like BS when I first heard it as a kid: 8 glasses of water is a LOT. Eight liters though? No way. :noway:

The body has a built-in warning mechanism that has evolved over millions of years, which tells you when your body needs water.

It’s called “thirst”.[/quote]

We do eat food that is awfully salty/sugary/too easily utilized in the modern day, so it wouldn’t be surprising if drinking more water ends up reducing some of the risk for cardiovascular disease/diabetes. You don’t have to feel thirsty or even dehydrated to have an higher-than-ideal concentration of substances in your blood.

Well, it’ll guarantee multiple trips to the bathroom…

8 liters a day will kill a young girl.

drink 8 small glasses, or for her age, 1 liter.

Anybody promoting 8 liters a day is either blissfully ignorant, wifully negligent, or has shares in a water filter company.

More than two GALLONS of water a day? For a kid? Jesus! :unamused: MT, Have you considered pouring that amount of water into a container (you’ll probably need to use your bathtub), showing it to your wife and asking her “are you SERIOUS?” And of course, if she’s advocating that amount for a small child, then presumably you and she will be expected to drink, what? 16 litres per day? 24? After all, you’re both a lot bigger than she is.
Have you asked her when she plans for the family to actually EAT anything? Given that drinking water in such vast quantities is going to take most of the day. Plus of course there’s the problem of the vital salts and nutrients you’ll be washing out of your systems.
Ask if she’s heard of water poisoning.

For a wee girl, you’d be looking at more like 1 liter, tops.

Yea, even the 8 glasses rule gets a sound debunking on Snopes.

snopes.com/medical/myths/8glasses.asp

In defense of my wonderful wife, she may not have actually said 8 liters (I confess to possibly having gotten a little carried away), but she does remind us incessantly to drink water, drink water, drink water and does often fear problems related to insufficient intake.

Drinking loads of water is nonsense. There’s water in your tea, coffee and soft drinks, as well as in your food. Fruit and vegetables are jam-packed with water. As long as you’re eating well and imbibing enough non-alcoholic beverages, you’ll be fine. Oh, and don’t get me stared on the warm water bunk.

Now now, everyone knows that drinking cold water causes instant death.

not quite death but i swear it makes my kids colds worse.

I gave a bunch of kids in my neighborhood tall glasses of ice water to drink, and every single one of them was stricken with acute confirmation bias.