Welcome back! It is good to see you again. I hope you are enjoying the blog posts so far on how to recover from a TKA the best way possible.
Today's blog post is going to be about hydration. I do not know of any formal studies in this area, that is something for me to look into. However, we know that hydration is important to being a human being and survival. You can live for a few weeks without any food. You can only live a few days without any water.
Maybe this blog post is not about hydration, maybe it is about preventing dehydration. Remember that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" - Benjamin Franklin.
How much water do you need in a day? That will depend on a number of factors. Where you live? Do you live in a warm environment where you are sweating all day long or are you living in a cooler environment? Do you work in a building with air conditioning on all day? Air conditioning cools and dehumdifies the air, making it drier. This pulls more water out of your body to humidify the air. The same thing occurs when you sleep, if your house has air conditioning. You will dehydrate you more at night. The best way to combat this? One of the first things you do in the morning is have a big glass of water! Just one glass. However, if you like you can have two glasses. :)
What does water do? Firstly, we are a water based being. Water makes everything work better, i.e. making more cerebrospinal fluid to cushion the brain, easier to make joint fluid to help to keep your joints lubed up and ready to go, and even easier to have a bowel movement. Secondly, being dehydrated affects your mental performance. Only being dehydrated 1-2%, (that is 1-2 L of water in a 200 lbs person), can contribute to brain fog- inability to concentrate.
How does this affect someone that has recently had a TKA, since we are on that subject? There is going to be a lot of swelling in the surgical leg. If you do not have adequate amounts of water intake, that swelling becomes thicker and more difficult to move around in the body. That can mean it becomes harder to get it out of the body. If you do everything else correctly, see our blog posts on swelling post TKA, but you are dehydrated, you will not the get great results. Then you will say that PT blogger, Rob from New Leaf Physiotherapy, Kelowna's Premier Mobile Physiotherapy Clinic does not know what he is talking about. :) As podcast, Shaun Stevenson, from the Model Health Show, often says, "we want to stack conditions in our favour". Drinking water during the day, adds more volume to your circulatory system/blood and lymph fluid. That can make the fluid thinner, runnier, and help it drain easier and faster.
The next question that I routinely get asked is what about coffee, tea, juice, pop/soda. Coffee and tea can be beneficial getting fluid in but caffeine does have a diuretic effect (it makes you want to void/go pee). Drinking an herbal tea that does not have caffeine is okay. Also, having a cup, or two, of coffee in the morning is okay, as long as you are drinking more water throughout the day.
This may sound simple but I am often surprised about how much resistance some people come back at me with. That is okay. This is simply my opinion on how to try to help you to optimize your recovery.
So how much water to drink? I recommend about 1-2L /day depending the on the person. Someone that weighs 110 lbs./50 kg, is going to need to drink less water than someone that is 250 lbs/110 kg. One formula that I have heard, I cannot remember from where, is to divide your body weight (in pounds) in half and that is the amount of water in ounces, you should drink on a daily basis, upto 100 ounces (~3 L). For example, if you weight 135 lbs, 135/2 = 67.5. You should be drinking approximately 67.5 ounces of water/day or about 2L.
What type of water should you be drinking? That is a topic/blog post onto itself. I usually drink tap water and sometimes water gone through a purifier. Bottled or spring water are great options as well. Look at your municipality's website and see how they disinfect the water, i.e. is chlorine added, do they use UV light...
One final note on drinking water. I would not drink the amount of water equally throughout the day. I would drink more of this in the morning and then have a water curfew in the evening. You do not want to drink ~1L of water before going to bed, you will be up multiple more times that night going to the bathroom. It might be a good idea of having a fluid curfew 2-3 hours before going to bed.
That is the end of this blog post. If you have any comments, please leave them below. Next week, we are going to be reviewing a biggie, nutrition basics post TKA!
If you are getting ready to have a knee or a hip replacement, have a plan in place and call New Leaf Physiotherapy for your at home physiotherapy needs. 250-826-7300 to talk with Lyndsey, a certified Rehabiliation Assistant, to help you book your assessment.
New Leaf Physiotherapy is a mobile physiotherapy service that sees clients in West Kelowna, Kelowna and Lake Country.
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