Water Intoxication: Not As Fun As It Sounds

Summer in San Diego dictates almost automatically that everyday until October will be hot and muggy. The weather forces man and beast to retreat indoors, deserting the roads and parks, making millionaires of the neighborhood ice cream men. Ants and spiders have begun to hang out at my kitchen sink, like some miniature urban watering hole. They wander aimlessly and I'm not sure what it is they're after. I tell them to go away, but I suspect they might not speak English. Or they're ignoring me, which is just rude.

My heatwave plan of retreat extends to closing the blinds, turning on all the electric fans, and sitting completely still while watching reruns of ER. In one episode, a young woman is diagnosed with what they called "water poisoning." She'd been at a rave, had ingested Ecstasy, and in the meantime had drunk so much water while jumping around to horrible techno music that she'd diluted her own bodily fluids (and the balance of electrolytes) to the point of imminent death.

I was horrified. I looked down at the bottle of water I was holding. It was my fourth one of the day. I didn't want to die convulsing, swollen brained, with my friends and family thinking that I recklessly overhydrate and enjoy techno.

Then I remembered: I don't take Ecstasy, which might cause the feeling of dehydration and the subsequent accidental overhydration. I wasn't dancing and sweating profusely, which causes loss of electrolytes from the body. And I doubted four bottles of water over the course of an entire day could be equated to more than a gallon at under an hour. I was safe. I imagined the spiders and ants at my sink were laughing at my brief paranoia, clicking and chirping in whatever freaky insect language they speak. I vowed to spray them with Raid sometime in the near future.

Water poisoning (or water intoxication) is actually quite rare and its occurence is disproportionate to the number of people who do use Ecstasy without ill effect. Those ill effects, however, when they do occur, can be devastating. And that's only in addition to the terrible taste in music.

For more information, please visit these links:
National Institute on Drug Abuse
Ecstasy.org
About.com: What Are The Effects of Ecstasy?