Electrolyte Drinks

[griffism]

I am looking to eliminate gatorade and powerade from my diet because of several questionable ingredients in those drinks. However, I need a replacement for these in my diet, as my POTS is not going away anytime soon. Any ideas?

Stefanie

[Katybug]

I have recently been told by 2 docs that deal with dysautonomia and EDS patients a lot, to use Nuun Active Hydration tablets. You drop them in 16 oz. of water. They are only 8 calories each. I have found them cheapest on Amazon. Fair warning....I've been using them for a week and they make me thirsty so I drink more. I'm assuming that is the point but I haven't had a chance to ask a doc yet. One doc told me 1 a day, the other doc told me 3 a day. I'm splitting the difference and drinking 2 plus more plain water and a decaffeinated tea or coffee here and there. I don't feel different one way or another but I was able to give 17 viles of blood on Wednesday without having a problem finding my veins or not being able to give all the blood needed. That's a good change.

[Fall-Di]

Stefanie,

I am in the same boat. I want off the Gatorade. Everything else seems to have some sort of fake sugar in it, I can barely handle sugar let alone the fake stuff. I am trying coconut water today. I will let you know how it goes.

I am working on a recipe to make at home and I live near a compound pharmacy that I plan on checking with them to see what they might have.

Di

[Fall-Di]

Katy,

I checked out the Nuun Active Hydration tablets and they had a sugar substitute in them. Do you know any that don't?

Thanks,

Di

[dancer65]

We make my own with oranges, limes, pink salt and coconut water I don't mind the sharpness but you could add honey to sweeten. Most of the time I juice them but you can use a blender as well. I know it is a bit of an effort but when I am not good my husband makes it.

[griffism]

I am looking at a lot of different home made recipes.

http://www.dfwcfids.org/healing/gokhmbrw.htm

This is one that I was given by a member of my local support group.

[dancer65]

Thanks for the link interesting reading!

[Katybug]

Sorry. Don't know of any commercial version that doesn't have some sort of sweetener.

[Fall-Di]

A bit of sugar is fine. I have Crohn's disease and get diarrhea very easily and that leads to loosing all my fluids... vicious cycle.

Tank you for the link Stefanie.

[Becia]

I've made my own by water, strawberries, lemons, salt. I am horribly allergic to artificial sweetners, so nuuns are out for me too. Sometimes I can tolerate the coconut water. I'm at the point I can tolerate salted water with a squeeze of lemon juice.

Sorry, I'm not any help at all.

[Dyspatient]

I get horrible reflux/heartburn from most of the drinks and mixes (NUUN tablets included). And artificial sweeteners tend to make trouble for my lower GI. So I just do water and electrolyte capsules. This means no citrus or burning berry flavors that kill my throat. The capsules I bought are called "Salt Stick caps" and they have Na, K, Ca, Mg and Vitamin D. They are kind of big though, so if you have any trouble swallowing they could be difficult. I hear a lot of people like the NUUN tablets.

[imapumpkin]

I'm a big fan of Nuun in terms of how it makes me feel..i have a post about it my experience with it here, but i'm also a big fan of SmartWater. I know it seems like a lot to pay for bottled water but it has added electrolytes and it's the only thing my body will actually retain. I'd say it's equal if not better than gatorade and powerade in terms of it's hydration for my body, without the sugars and dyes.

[jjb]

One of our doctors is a big fan of Smart Water. We use it often. On the days we need more electrolyte, we use a low sugar lemonade (Trader Joes Organic PInk) mixed with mineral water and sometimes added salt (we use Real Sea Salt with minerals).

If we are out and about and need something quickly, especially on those hot days, we go for vitamin water ZERO. They have added electrolytes, use stevia but they also use erythritol which I am not a big fan of. However, Vitamin Water Zero has been very effective for my daughter as an electrolyte drink on hot days and she is starting to not feel well.

We could never do Gatorade or anything similar.

[Claired]

hey guys, I think sometime soon Normalyte in partnership with Dysautonomia International is designing a new electrolyte drink just for dysautonomia patients!

In the meantime, I drink blue Powerade Zero as well as Pacific beef broth or chicken broth and V8 (both are salty).

[Batik]

Most of the time I drink salty water, and I have the odd Nuun tablet when I fancy a sweet/flavoured drink. Some people find they like salty water, it's worth a try. I put 1/2 tsp salt into an 800ml/27 oz water bottle. The salt is about two-thirds ordinary salt to one-third low sodium salt, which means that there's some potassium in there as well as the sodium. No, it does not taste like seawater! But I admit that most people don't like it. I have a tube of Nuun tablets in my handbag, and have been known to carry around 200ml cartons of coconut water for emergencies too.

[Dyspatient]

Oooh, that's interesting news Claired! That would be great.

I hope this isn't too off topic, but talk about sugar content made me think of it. I've been given a lecture by my primary care several times now about needing sugar for rehydration to be effective. Does anyone know about that? I think I recall him saying something about needing sugar to transport across membranes....er, or something. Just curious because while I dislike and generally avoid sugary drinks, I do sometimes find for myself a big glass of ginger ale makes me feel much better than a similar amount of water plus electrolyte tablet.

[MCbeach]

My daughter stays away from Nuun because of the polyethylene gylcol ingredient. I wish it didn't have that. She drinks tons of Smart Water or the generic Electrolyte water. She also has a Thai Young Coconut as much as possible. We found an Asian market close by that carry them for about $1.25 each and a tool off Amazon that you plug a hole in in to get the coconut water. She always feels good when she has those. Hope this helps.

[cbear1591]

I make my own concoction using an infuser bottle. I use coconut water, salt, and oranges. It tastes great and seems to work just as well as drinking Gatorade.

[Batik]

By the way, I avoid sugar too, but there are times when I need it. When I'm getting close to passing out and my blood sugar needs to go up immediately, for instance. It can be worth carrying electrolytes plus sugar for such emergencies. I think I have the odd Diarolyte sachet somewhere, but mostly I carry Sesame Snaps, which are half glucose (= immediate energy) and half sesame seeds (= prolonged energy, with plenty of protein). I've been trying nut bars too, but Sesame Snaps seem to do better. Oddly, if I eat them when I am not feeling lightheaded and generally wobbly, the sugar makes me feel crap. But in emergencies (which don't have to be dramatic, I often need one after a myofascial release/trigger point treatment) they really help.

[BeforeTheMorning]

@Dyspatient. I think this is right: there are transporters in the gut that move glucose molecules into the blood but also drag sodium along with them so that the sodium concentration in the blood gets higher and therefore more water gets dragged into the blood. Meaning you get more rehydrated. Hope that makes sense!

If you want a more scientific sounding answer someone else may be able to help.

This free course is amazing for learning all about that kind of thing. https://www.coursera.org/learn/physiology I learnt so much that I didn't know before about why my doctors were telling me to drink loads and eat loads of salt (I knew the basic principle behind that but it was amazing to learn how it actually works) and I also learnt about how some of the tests I'd had actually worked. It was so interesting.

Anyway, sorry to hijack the thread with that.

I quite like the GU Brew electrolyte tablets. I think they have some natural sweetener and some artificial sweetener but none of the really bad ones if I remember correctly. It also doesn't taste that bad, in fact it was a lot nicer than another brand I tried.

I'm looking forward to seeing what Normalyte will bring out. Apparently their new product should be available by the summer. It's going to be based on a survey taken by 2,000 dysautonomia patients I think.

[Batik]

As far as I know, most of the time you don't need the additional glucose because you're getting that from your diet. Rehydration solutions are designed for people with severe diarrhoea/vomiting who can't keep food down, and that's a different situation. So if you're eating plenty, you may well find that sugar-free formulations do the job nicely and the sugared ones just make you feel ill and/or cause weight gain. But if you are having trouble eating, or it's an emergency when you need to get your blood sugar up, the sugared ones can be a lot more useful.

[BeforeTheMorning]

Oh yes, thanks for mentioning that Batik, I meant to add that but I forgot.

[Batik]

I think the confusion is because electrolyte drink/tablet manufacturers are not, by and large, targeting the POTS community. They're either going for the medical market, in which case it's about diarrhoea/vomiting and the sugar is needed, or the sports market, which again has different needs to ours.

Has anyone managed to make an electrolyte drink with stevia yet?

[bethanyh]

I am curious after reading these posts, I noticed that no one has mentioned Propel Vitamin water, does anyone drink that? I drink at least one 16.9oz bottle per day of Propel. It is manufactured by the Gatorade company but has no calories or sugar but it does have sodium. I am not sure about artificial sweeteners or other negative ingredients that it may contain though. I cannot handle Gatorade so Propel was suggested to me as a substitute. Does anyone have advice one way or the other about this?

[Batik]

I just googled Propel and it most certainly has sugar in it.

Your choices with electrolyte drinks are, as far as I know:

1. Commercial with sugar.

2. Commercial with sweetener.

3. Home-made with either. Unless you like salty water, you're probably going to be putting either sugar or sweetener in too.

My preference is salty water most of the time (I'm lucky, I actually like it) and the odd Nuun for a treat. I am careful with sweeteners too, but Nuun doesn't seem to cause me any problems, and having all that sugar in a drink certainly would.