I started this thread when dealing with a daily barage of muscle spasms and cramps in my torso. Something was out of whack and I was in the recovery part so I was looking to learn how others deal with hydration issues or prevent it.
After working in non climate controlled conditions for a few decades it has taken a toll on my body. Not like I'm sick or dying, just an aging body that is fighting against an easily overlooked routine of daily hydration techniques. If you have a few minutes read on.
At about 10 years old I started playing baseball all summer. All day, nearly every day. The neighbors garden hose was our source of water. As time passed it was like any normal kid, play until time to go home. Take a warm bath to thwart off leg cramps a couple times a week. My dad ate a lot of fruits and vegetables, but as a kid I did not understand why. Yuck, why eat strawberrys when there's chocolate cake? When I reached adulthood I worked in road maintenance so sweat soaked clothes was the norm in summer. Back then I drank a lot of beer and ate a lot of high salt tuna from a can so hydration was not an issue. But I turned that beer drinking habit off like a light switch one day. And had grown tired of canned tuna.
I got away with not properly hydrating for a few years. I worked mostly at night then. Then in about 2012 my body said "enough fool!!" I got over come in the heat one day. Strangely enough it wasn't all that hot that day. It happened again a couple of weeks later. I blamed it on the new style safety vest we had to wear. It was no longer a vest without arms, but was more like a shirt. Sleeves, more area of the chest covered, and a thicker material. To this day I think it did indeed play a role because other veteran construction guys also got over heated around that time. The following year, same thing. Make it through hot days of June and July only to be over heated in late August when the temps were in the 80's.
After that life took me back to night work for a few years so a decent diet and a couple of extra bottles of water was good enough. Then in 018 in Spring a daytime project resulted in me thinking I'd have to find another line of work. Dizzyness, weakness, and dozing off to sleep at the darndest times started occuring. Now at that point I had been taking a thyroid pill for a few years and had gotten through the adjustment period where funky heartbeat, hot flashes, and other side effects while the body adjusts were merely a bad memory anymore, but what if that's it? Again? Crap!!
My wife was all upset. See, it had been going on for a few weeks but I didn't tell her. One day she came home from work and saw the mower in the middle of the yard, stopped mid-cut. And me taking a nap in our bed. I told her then what was happening. I was working out of town at the time so she'd call my hotel at 7 to chat, I'm in the shower so she's freaking out like thinking I'd stroked out or something. "I'm fine dear, sorry to scare you dear, yes I'll go to a doctor dear". So I did..... eventually.
One return trip home I was feeling especially lousy. I saw a rescue squad station in a one horse town on my route and thought about stopping there when traffic lights overhead started flashing and the ambulance goes rushing out. The building was empty so I kept going. About 30 minutes later I realized I did not remember the last 30 minutes. Uh oh!! That aint good. Being near home I called the Mrs to say I'd be stopping at a dox in a box before coming home and why. "You're dehydrated, go to the ER" they said. Man screw that I need to unpack, hug Mrs Fixer and get some stuff done around the house, but the Mrs drove me to the ER after I'd unpacked. "You're dehydrated" they said and sent me home. Mrs Fixer had made an appointment with my regular doctor by then knowing I probably wouldn't.
That dude put me on a heart monitor for a month. Imagine wearing EKG dots glued to your chest and an 80's walkman fastened to your hip via your clothes all day, every day for 30 days. Well after about day 8 I get a call from some doctors office saying "get to an ER NOW!!" "Man I'm in a meeting, I'll go later" I said. 10 minutes later Mrs Fixer calls. "Are you at the ER yet?" WTH? "Ok ok, I'll drive home and see one there. I felt fine actually and saw no reason to panic. I call the boss "boss I need to leave, some doctor says I need to go to an ER". Boss says "Are you ok?" "Yeah, this issue I'm having hasn't gotten better" "What issue? Why haven't you told anybody?" "I'm on a diet and excersize plan and my body is pissed off, but I'm ok"...
On the drive home the doctor calls back and says "come see me tomorrow, you're ok now". Next day I meet this guy who could be PK's cousin or something and he sent me for a bunch of tests. By now I'm thinking "medical copays are going to bankrupt my dum@$$". I got through all of that. After losing about 30 pounds through proper diet and lots of excersize I felt great again.
In 019 it was back to work near home, sitting behind a desk, then in 021 back to nights. Muscle cramps were still an issue. Having survived Covid my body had added some 20 pounds. Then 10 more, and 10 more, and another 10. My 30 pounds were back and along with that another 20. Too many Burger King meals, too much time sitting behind a desk, forgetting to hydrate then trying to make up for that in an hour. It led to high blood pressure and colesterol. I was down to 2 daily pills. A thyroid one for life and one for the hearbeat issue caused by the thyroid pill (probably for life). Now up to 5 in the day and a colesterol at night? Screw that, I'm getting rid of these 50 pounds.
That began in June. The excersize thing included some strength routine so the number on the scales were going the wrong way at first. A month in they actually started falling even though my muscles were showing again. Then the day I was cutting grass and the plague of cramps began knocked me in the nose. I had already begun a routine of eating electrolites and drinking plenty of fluids. Trouble was the fluid intake was being done wrong.
Think about really dry dirt, then dumping a bunch of water on it at once. Most runs away and does not soak in. I took 4 days off from life and took in fluids at a slow but steady pace. On day 5 the cramps were all but gone. However they were still popping up on occasion. It seems as though that resulted from all that sitting behind a desk. My brother called it "atrophy". Now that's a term normally reserved for decaying muscles from being bed ridden. But in small doses we can have atrophy set in a little here, a little there.
It really seems to boil down to a lifestyle over a few decades that have led to reactions that are not so pleasant, but are reminders of why my dad ate all those fruits and vegetables, got plenty of sleep, avoided excess caffiene, got plenty of light excersize each day, and in general took good care of his electrolite balance.