Can You Be Dehydrated W/o Hypovolemia

[Heartandsoul]

Hello,

Have had relentless uti and a then a kidney infection, the latter of which has improved. At one point 3 wks ago put on saline (at ER) for very low NA and for dehydration. Last week was still somewhat dehydrated. Also NA still was somewhat low as of last week. Getting those 2 things checked tomorrow.

So I am confused....uneducated. What is difference btwn dehydration and hypovolemia. At ER they said being so sick uses lotsa extra fluid.

But at any rate can someone tell me the difference between the 2?

Thank you,

Heartandsoul

[bellgirl]

Hypovolemia means decreased fluid volume of your blood, which is more extracellular. Dehydration is your body lacking fluids, intracellularly, mainly water, because of low fluid intake, or vomiting/diarrhea. It is complicated. Google it.

[Heartandsoul]

Bell girl,

Thank you so much for your excellent, simple explanation of something you state is complicated. What you told me helps me greatly.

Best,

Heartandsoul

[Tuesday]

Great explanation!

I've always thought of hypovolemia like this:

In your car, your fuel gauge tells you how full your gas tank is. So, when it's full you know you don't need to top it off. In our body, when we have hypovolemia, our "gas gauge" is broken and tells us the tank is full when it's really not. So, we are not making as much blood as we need to in order to serve our body's basic purpose.

Dehydration is about your entire body not having the fluid it needs to operate properly. While blood is part of that, dehydration is throughout the body.

Edited to add: So yes, you can be one without the other. Your blood volume could be low, but you could have adequate hydration throughout the rest of your body's tissues, or you could have adequate blood volume, but not enough hydration in your body.

[bellgirl]

Thanks Heartandsoul; and Tuesday, well said!!