The topic of adequate hydration has already been debated to death, and the general public has a bit of fatigue in implementing the right hydration practices into their routine, much less listening to anything on the topic in the first place.
Getting enough water is obviously crucial yet in this part of the discussion, I want to talk about two lesser known, yet important aspects of hydration, when it comes to soft tissue health.
· Hydration is not equal to water alone. Hydration means maintaining the right amount of fluid in the right ionic concentration in tissues. This can only be achieved if water is anchored with the right minerals that can “hold” the water and prevent it from being flushed out. I have run into many patients over the years that tell me they are constantly drinking but never feel hydrated, because they seem to urinate right away any water ingest. This phenomenon is real and is corrected by ingesting the right balance of salts and minerals along with water. This becomes a problem for many reasons that can get complicated and well beyond the scope of this blog. The two main culprits are the standard American Diet lacking high quality sources of magnesium, potassium, calcium and other trace minerals, while being overloaded with refines salts ( which unlike naturally occurring salt in food, mined salt or sea salt, contains nothing beyond plain sodium). The second is the overmedication of most of the US population, both prescription and over the counter, with many of these pharmaceuticals altering mineral balance long term. Besides improving their diet, some patients with chronic soft tissue problems may need to speed up their recovery with mineral supplementation. The most common ones we tend to use are the C-M-K ( calcium, magnesium and potassium), as well as some of the homeopathic cell salts.
· Most patients understand that muscular function, especially cramp prevention, is affected by salt and mineral deficiency. Few seem to know that the quality and resiliency of collagen is affected by the excessively common magnesium deficiency, leading to greater susceptibility to chronic injury. Even fewer know that hydration keeps various adjacent layers of soft tissue from developing adhesions with each other during the normal friction of movement. The latter is probably one of the best kept secrets in the world of chronic myofascial dysfunction, where practitioners spend a lot of time releasing bound fascia to find it stubbornly rebounding to its original contractures and adhesions.
In summary, patients would be wise to keep adequate hydration by paying attention to the interventions mentioned above. When it comes to water alone, we should also all be wise in recognizing that the modern lifestyle is rife in stimuli that tend to suppress our natural thirst response, and that keeping a visual reminder of how much water we drink, such as pre-filling a few water bottles to be emptied out before retiring for the night, will go a long way to make up for it.