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Favorite Salty Drinks?


jem15

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Hi everyone,

I'm going back to PT to try and come up with a good "POTS program", and though I haven't found salt to make much of a difference for me in the past, I want to see if it helps me tolerate exercise better if I take something super salty before and/or after exercise sessions. I never stumbled on a favorite drink of choice, I can't seem to get down V8s, and I' m fine with Gatorade, I just didnt want the extra sugar/chemicals if I could avoid it. I don't tolerate sugar substitutes well, so I rather take real sugar if I have to.

Anyway, just curious what drinks, or light super salty snacks you guys tend to like or think would be good for pre or post exercising?

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I rely on Camelbak's Elixir - I get the berry flavor. It comes in a tube with 12 tablets that are scored. I use 1/2 a tablet in 16 ounces of water. Tastes good, low cal, and you can find it at places like REI or other sporting stores. You can also find it online.

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Thanks, I had never heard of either. They both seem to be sugar free though..I don't tolerate sugar free drinks/sugar substitutes well. I get nauseous, headaches, and a tickle in my throat.. anyone know if there are any flavorless ones, without sugar substitutes? or I rather almost take a sugar one, if sugar substitutes are my only alternative. I guess I could just try regular gatorade, but I didn't remember the sodium being that high, but I'm not sure..

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I don't tolerate the sugar free stuff either. If you can drink Gatorade, maybe you could add extra salt? I make my own drink from scratch, I can't even tolerate Gatorade LOL! There is one I have used called Recharge which is sweetened with fruit juice and is all natural. It's pretty good. I get it at the health food store.

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Hmm... maybe I will experiment with making my own or adding salt to other drinks and seeing if it's tolerable..

Songcanary, do you have a recipe that you tend to like best?

I also still have to experiment with coconut water, i didnt like the one i tried, but i have another one with a little more sodium and fruit juice so maybe that'll taste better..Otherwise maybe I'll just drink Ensure and see if I notice a difference.. it seems to have more sodium than gatorade and has high potassium too, I could do without the extra fat, sugar, and chemicals if I'm using it on a regular basis.. but maybe I'll just try it to see if it even makes me feel better. If I find I do tolerate exercise better with the salt/electrolyte stuff, than I'll have to find a way to make it work.

Ha, or I can try just try chicken broth to test the salt thing..if I can stomach it, or just eat a salty snack instead if it's too hard to get it in drink form. I just thought drink form would be easiest, quickest, and also might give me other electrolytes.. ha, but it's proving harder than I thought since I don't like all the other junk that comes with those drinks, and the salt content isn't as high as I thought with those drinks.

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Caterpilly,

My recipe isn't too exciting I must confess. It's just one teaspoon of iodized sea salt in 2L tap water. Plus, I drink one bottle of coconut water in the morning for the potassium. The brand is Taste Nirvana and it's good because there is no aftertaste; it comes in a glass bottle. Plus, they use young coconuts so it isn't bitter.

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Just a word of caution - Vitamin water is SUPER yummy but it has lots of niacin in it. Niacin has a hidden effect of vaso dilation. Until a year ago G2 also had niacin in it. Niacin causes some people to flush really bad. It makes me feel like I'm going to catch on fire and I look like a beet for about an hour after I drink it. It makes my son flush as well but because of his POTS it made him vaso dilate and his BP dropped - scary and unexpected.

Also beware of some broths - ramen broth has MSG in it and so do some of the others. Kyler gets about 8,000 mgs/day (by dr.'s order) mostly from foods. He hates to add salt but so many foods have a ton in it like mission brand flour tortilla shells have 630 mgs in 1. He loves a lunch meat wrap and just the piece of cheese has 200 mgs. in 1 slice. It takes close to an hour for the sodium to move thru your intestines and get absorbed and then pull the fluid into your vascular system to give you the volume expansion benefit so eating the sodium isn't a bad choice. We usually manage abot 2,000 mgs/ meal (he is a 6'3 teenage boy so he probably eats more volume than most). Good luck with whatever works for you just be careful of hidden things that can make you feel worse. It has been a learning experience for us.

Serena

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Hi Caterpilly, I sometimes like to drink packet Miso soup. It is usually very high in sodium (800mg) and you get a huge hit of sodium from just one packet. I don't find it tastes terribly salty compared to other foods. I can buy it from my local supermarket but you can probably also buy it from specialty Asian food stores.

How did you go with the light therapy by the way?? (sorry, I've forgotten the name of it).

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Thanks everyone for your replies:-)

And Lotusflower, thanks for asking bout the light therapy. But ugh, so frustrating, I haven't gotten to try it! I picked up the old machine and the doctor never checked to see if it worked. Looks like the bulb is burnt out, so I was trying to find a new one, but it takes a weird bulb. It's a "short" bulb, so not a full size bulb. And it's a 50watt/120volt.. I can find some 50 watt, but no "short" ones, and the regular ones won't fit in the machine. The doctor has no idea where to get the bulbs and wasn't trying to find one. Ha, I was so mad. He's just leaving it all up to me. I tried looking online but couldnt really find anything. Only on one site did I find an "oven" bulb that seemed to be the correct watt and size, but still wasnt sure since it said "oven".. and i'd have to pay extra money for shipping, and didnt know if it was worth it.

The doctor then said he can order me a newer home version of the machine for $500 if I wanted. It went from free to $500! And he says he's been ordering this/using it with other patients. Which I didn't understand cause when I last talked to him, he said he hasnt done this therapy in a while, would need to brush up on it, and would experiment with me. So unless this sparked him to try again and start ordering it for several of his other patients, but I doubt it. Ha, so now I dont even know if he knows what he's talking about anymore. Anyway, right now, I have too much going on to drop $500. I still have the machine though, and if i can find that online site again with the weird bulb, i may consider getting them at some point, but i think it was gonna cost like $20-30 with shipping or something, and it might not even work. So I gotta see... I got frustrated, that he made me get a driver and go all the way down to get it without even checking it, and then is completely unhelpful in trying to locate a bulb for his own machine? I don't know... and now I dont know if i trust that he even did research on how to apply the therapy to my conditions.. and he's out of network, so i dont want him charging me for consults in between if he's not even doing much... so right now i put it on hold. When i get desperate for something to try again, I may try it... but right now, ha, I'm just keeping the machine, until i can figure out what i want to do... it's gonna be a pain for me to return it cause i'd have to find a driver to bring me there and it's like an hour away...

so that's my disappointing story;-)

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oooh, I'm sorry to hear that. It's so frustrating when doctors promise much and deliver so little. I would feel doubtful too of everything he's said about the machine and his experience given his contradictions. You can only do what you can do at the moment, so if it's off the cards, he'll just have to wait for a long time before getting his machine back while you decide if you want to try it.

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