Ever heard of waterintoxication?

Nurses General Nursing

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This week a man was admitted to the ward where I work with waterintoxication. When I heard of this I was like what? Apparently he suffered from some kind of psychiatric disorder and he wouldn´t stop drinking water. His electrolytes were waay low.. Ever heard of this?

Specializes in Infection Preventionist/ Occ Health.

If you look up "hyponatremia" you will find a lot of info on the web.

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I actually studied this in school when we were covering diabetes insepidus, someone actually did a presentation on it and for the life of me i cant even remember, but i do remember them saying that it is a mental problem were they drink excessive amounts of water and then their electrolytes become low due to dilutional issues.

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i have had a patient with diabetes insipidus who died with the h2o intox

he was a young guy in his last year of college, an only child, his parents were devastated

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Specializes in Peds, ER/Trauma.

I took care of a baby a few weeks ago in the ER with water intoxication- the mother had given the baby several 8-ounce bottles of water within a day- I think she ran out of milk, or couldn't afford it, but the baby was seizing and in respiratory distress, needed to be intubated- her sodium was 121.

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I took care of a baby a few weeks ago in the ER with water intoxication- the mother had given the baby several 8-ounce bottles of water within a day- I think she ran out of milk, or couldn't afford it, but the baby was seizing and in respiratory distress, needed to be intubated- her sodium was 121.

That's why I can't do babies! Makes me so sad! Yeah, water intoxication is psych related and don't forget to watch the sodium. I am having a signifiant amount of people with low sodiums come in lately. First I thought it was the heat, but these are little ol ladies??

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This condition is common after road running races. In a number marathons across the country, deaths have occured as a result.

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Specializes in SICU, EMS, Home Health, School Nursing.

There was a patient when I was doing my psych rotation with this. They had to shut off the water to her room and remove the handles from the shower, etc. and watch her to make sure she didn't go in any of the other patients rooms.

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It happened to me. I ended up in the ER with tachycardia. It turns out my potassium levels were really low from drinking too much water.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
This week a man was admitted to the ward where I work with waterintoxication. When I heard of this I was like what? Apparently he suffered from some kind of psychiatric disorder and he wouldn´t stop drinking water. His electrolytes were waay low.. Ever heard of this?

Yes, I have. When I was an aide at a psych hospital, we used monitor those type of patients on one to one because of water intoxication. I didn't understand it much as an aide, but when we covered fluids and electrolytes in nursing school, those patients did come to my mind, making me remember it well. Fascinating, isn't it?

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Yes, it is. In this same area, there were two cases of small children who died; one was forced to eat salt (his mom had caught him spilling the saltshaker and licking the salt or something like that), the other was fed pepper as a punishment for something he'd done.

Took care of a young girl with an ENORMOUS ovarian tumor (thankfully benign). Mom thought she'd become pregnant because she'd caught her swimming in the creek with some boys. She decided to midwife her daughter herself. After 10 or 11 months without giving birth, she finally decided to go to a local doc, who immediately sent her on to our gyn/onc.

I worked as an LPN while in RN school at this small hospital. The town was actually rather upscale, mostly university students and staff. But the surrounding area was dirt poor, and alot of the people who lived back in those hills were very backward and illiterate, paranoid and superstitious (most of which was religious based, but was so out there I'm not even sure you could call it 'fundamentalism') It wasn't uncommon to see stuff like that; one of my fellow LPN-to-RN students worked that ER. The stories she had would curl your hair.

(sorry. didn't mean to hijack the thread)

You didn't hijack the thread in my opinion. In fact, I would request that you start a thread and share some of those stories. I love reading about these sort of things. Thanks for sharing it.

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
I took care of a baby a few weeks ago in the ER with water intoxication- the mother had given the baby several 8-ounce bottles of water within a day- I think she ran out of milk, or couldn't afford it, but the baby was seizing and in respiratory distress, needed to be intubated- her sodium was 121.

Interesting that you mention this; a similar question and the exact sodium level was on my NCLEX test last year. Talk about revisiting an issue!

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Specializes in icu, er, transplant, case management, ps.

yes i have and not just in mentally ill patients. it also happens in long distance runners who drink too much water, in too short a period of time. and it does effect your electroytes.

woody:balloons:

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