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3/ Save up your drinks if you’re going to need them. If you know you are going to an event where
temptation to drink more fluid that you should will be strong, save up your drinks beforehand. For example – if you get off dialysis at lunchtime on Wednesday (meaning that you go back to dialysis on Friday Morning), and you have a function to attend on Thursday night, try to drink as little as possible between Wednesday lunchtime and Thursday evening, telling yourself that your reward will be fact that you will be able to drink (nearly) as much as a “normal” person at function.
4/ Keep yourself busy! Any dialysis patient will tell you that when they’re busy, they’re not thinking about drinking. It could be a gentle walk, send an email to a friend, jump on phone, or play with your kids. It doesn’t matter, as long as it keeps your mind occupied.
5/ Frozen water. Freeze a bottle of water, containing amount you have allowed yourself to drink that day, and drink it as it defrosts. This has benefit of drink being ice-cold, as well. The down-side of this is that if your bottle melts too quickly, you could find yourself at 3pm, with all your water gone!
6/ Spray bottle. Get yourself a spray bottle, and fill it with water (maybe with a little lemon juice or mint flavouring), and spray it into your mouth when you feel urge to have a drink. Whilst this won’t completely sate your desire for fluids, it may help you wait a little longer before indulging!
7/ Mints and toothpaste. Try sucking a strong mint, or even brushing your teeth. The feeling of a clean, fresh mouth will often lessen desire to blow your fluid limit. (This method will make you nicer to kiss, too!)
I hope that these suggestion will help you in dialysis patient’s eternal quest to keep their fluid gain under control. But remember, life is for living too, and we, as dialysis patients more than most need to adhere to this edict. So whilst keeping your fluid gain under control is important for both your immediate and long term health, remember that if you’ve blown your fluid this time, there is always next time, so keep trying!
About the author: Stuart Drew is a 34 year old dialysis patient from Adelaide, Australia. He is a part time web geek, and runs the website therenalunit.com - a news service for all issues relating to kidney disease and dialysis. He can be contacted at stuart@stuartdrew.com
