How Much Water Should We Drink?
How much water do you drink per day?
This question came up a few times when I skyped or facebook messaged with several IC and chronic UTI friends in the Ruth Kriz Treatment group. We used to ask each other this question back and forth as our bladders continued to heal overtime. But there is no clear-cut answer, because everyone is at a different stage in healing, has different activity levels, and weighs differently.
In the beginning of this bladder sage, when I was at my most severe stage back in Spring 2018, I was gulping down water at 2.5 litres to 3 litres per day. I wouldn't sip my glasses of water, I would literally inhale a glass or two down as fast as I could. My bladder felt like it was constantly filled with acid, and it would hurt more if it wasn't diluted with water. My urethra felt like it was always on fire back then, and urine felt like sharp razor blades spilling out. I was so desperate that I kept drinking water to try to decrease the sensation (along with the baking soda tricks that others taught me). As time went on and my bladder and urethra symptoms started to heal, I lowered my intake to 2 litres... then 1.8 litres... Today I am drinking about 1.4 - 1.7 litres per day. I do not get sharp stingy wees anymore; it stopped back in Fall 2018, I think. The wees I have today feel very close to normal, but there will be a slight sting at the end of urination, ranging from nearly non-existant to mildly sharp. It is more prominent if I didn't drink enough water to dilute the sensation.
Now that I am getting better, I started googling on how much water I should be drinking per day, because I had forgotten how much I used to drink when I was normal. When you have this bladder disease, you get so much brain fog that your previous normal life is just a hazy memory. Many websites suggest to drink 8 glasses of water. I did not find this very helpful, because it is the same generic instruction for everyone, but people come in all shapes and sizes. It would not make sense to tell a 100 lb person and a 200 lb person that they must adhere to the 8 glasses of water per day rule. I would be more inclined to believe that water intake would be relative to one's weight. If you are nearing recovery and also not sure how much water you should be drinking normally, this is what I found:
One website said, "Get your weight and divide that number in half. That's how many ounces of water you should drink per day."
I will use myself as an example. Currently, I am 95 pounds. So I divide that in half to get 45 oz (1.3 litres). That is how much I should drink a day according to that website. But since I have this disease, I increase my intake slightly higher at 1.4 - 1.7 litres per day. This is the amount that I have found to keep my bladder as calm as possible.