Dehydration can kill anyone at any age. Special note during loose bowel movement / diarrhea episodes, sometimes the intake of plain water may not be enough as the body gets an imbalance in electrolyte levels and cannot make use of the plain water. First aid I usually choose is water melon, then follow up with coconut juice with coconut meat for raw fats. But what if the dehydrated person is far beyond that stage? What if he cannot take anything orally?
Normally, people think of IV drips in the emergency room of a hospital. But did you know that that method takes too slow? You drive up to the hospital, the hospital staff diagnose, fill out papers, then decide if they will give you an IV drip. In some hospitals they will require you to check in and get a room before even giving you an IV drip! Plus the IV drip itself which directly goes to the blood takes a fairly long time to do its job. So what to do?
Enemas. Hydrating RETENTION enemas. It is basically water, with a lot of sugar and some salt.
Here is a hydrating enema formula for a 6 year old child:
- 1.0 liter of boiled clean room temperature water
- 6 tablespoons of real sugar
- 1 teaspoon of real sea salt
Mix in enema kit until all is dissolved. Administer the enema 100 ml at a time. Have the patient hold the enema some 10 minutes. You can have the patient lie in different positions to let the enema go round and round the intestines. Distract the patient with television, movie, stories, games or anything so he can hold it, absorb it.
If the patient needs 100 ml more, give it, retain. Repeat until the patient absorbs no more.
Usually the patient recovers in 1 to 2 minutes.
You can then probably use oral hydration. See to it fats are ingested. Fats let humans be hydrated longer and steadier. If patient is so fat deprived, you can later on stick in some virgin coconut oil or extra virgin olive oil as enema.
Enema is faster and safer than any IV drip in hydrating patients. You must have an enema kit at home. You must practice using it before hand. Remember to lubricate the anus and the enema end with something like ghee, other thick oils, or petroleum jelly — it’s not specific, any will do. Be careful with your insertion angle. Listen to the patient if it hurts… you have the wrong angle, try again.
Adjust the formula accordingly for adult sized patients.
Our home enema kit
Edwin, most of your healing ideas are spot on, but are you sure about giving salt to an already dehydrated person, whether orally or by enema? That sounds like some really dangerous advice. Before I go on water fasts, I drink a couple tablespoons of sea salt or Epsom salts dissolved in a little water, and that gives me a real powerful diarrhea which flushes out most of the remaining food out of my GI tract. It does this by osmotically drawing water from the body into the gut. I’m always very thirsty afterwards, and have to drink another quart or two of water to compensate later. It sounds to me like this is something that could kill a dehydrated person.
We used this for one of our children recently and it was very successful. This is Vander Gaditano’s formula.
Maybe we should use less salt in the ratio?
Here is a similar solution http://www.deathvalleymag.com/2010/03/01/medical-how-a-tactical-enema-could-save-your-life/
Yes, you MUST add salt to the solution. I know it seems backwards, but sodium, sugar, and potassium help keep your electrolyte balance. This is why people say to drink Gatorade when you do a heavy workout and lose a lot of water through sweat. I had a case of a person who only used water in an enema (couldn’t drink, was vomiting from stomach virus) and because they didn’t add the salt and sugar to the solution, their body went into shutdown. The medical term for loss of the sodium is hyponatremia. This person went into a seizure and respiratory arrest, and was rushed to the hospital where they diagnosed it a a hyponatremic seizure. It took 2 hours with 7 people working on her to get her stabilized. Had to insert a breathing tube, and everything. Over $70,000 hospital stay. This could all have been avoided by adding that little bit of salt to the enema solution. I was an eyeswitness to all of this – believe me, electrolytes (sodium, sugar, potassium balance) are VITAL. Dehydration is life threatening, but loss of electrolytes is almost (in my opinion) just as bad and worse.
I think it says in the article to add salt. Maybe you missed it?
i believe chloe was referring to the first post from “peter”. this is definitely a useful tool i can have in my back pocket. we were always taught that iv/io is what you want to do. i never really knew about this.
Peter is confusing chloride (salt) with magnesium (epsom “salts”). These are two very different chemicals. Epsom salts increase paristalsis (movement of smooth muscle in the gut to propel food toward the anus) and that is why they flush you. Sea salt will NOT do the same thing.
Do you know what is in an IV solution? Salt. They can’t put water into your blood without salt, because–as explained above–it will dilute your electrolytes which is dangerous and could even cause heart failure.
In yoga practice a standard way of cleansing the intestines is to dissolve 1 tablespoon sea salt in 1 L of luke warm water. The L of salian solution is then completely consumed. One must be sure that the body is well hydrated before consuming the solution. What follows is several powerful thrust of the intestines expelling all the continents. Adding the sugar may alter the composition of the solution and account for its usefulness.