| >> | >>531482
addressing your other symptoms, how dehydrated do you think you are getting? how much do you drink in a day?
the getting lightheaded and almost passing out standing up is called orthostatic hypotension. it's caused by your heart pressure suddenly dropping extremely low when standing up, because your blood pools in your legs and toward wherever gravity takes it, and when you stand up all that excess blood in your legs causes a delayed constriction of your blood vessels (which is required to maintain your blood pressure/equilibrium in the cardiovascular system), which prevents enough blood getting transported to the heart. This results in reduced cardiac output and inadequate blood flow to the brain.
it's normal for blood pressure to drop when standing up, but lightheadedness, vertigo, tunnel vision, passing out, etc. only occurs when something else is going on. typically it's caused either by vasodilators (makes blood vessels wider). sometimes vasoconstrictors (thins blood vessels), stimulants/diuretics, or is caused by dehydration or blood loss. in your case, the most obvious cause is obviously dehydration, which is why i asked how much you are drinking.
the pins and needles and itchiness can be caused by other things. are the pins and needles in your extremities (hands, lower arms, feet, lower legs) or is it in places like your back/lower back, behind your arms, and the back side of your body in general? same with with itchiness, is it in the extremities or on your back/backside? the pins and needles, if in your extremities could indicate a lot of vasoconstriction, which might play into and help explain your orthostatic hypotension. the itchiness could just be a secondary side-effect of said vasoconstriction.
on the other hand, if the pins and needles and itchiness seems to be centered around your back/backside, you could have what we called "prickly heat" in the Army. it's caused by sweating so much without being able to regularly bathe (in most regular people) that salt from dried sweat clogs up the pores and makes the act of sweating actually physically painful, which feels like being stabbed with a bunch of tiny needles or being stung by lots of little bugs. since you over sweat, even with regular bathing, it could still be causing this to happen (i get it from time to time). the reason it happens to your back and backside (like the back of your arms and shit) the most is because you are sitting for long periods of time while sweating, and this causes those pores to get clogged up more easily.
>----Important Hydration shit----
So, it sounds like you are dehydrated. You should be drinking a 2:1 ratio of water to a drink with electrolytes, like gatorade/powerade. Something a lot of people neglect mentioning though is how important eating properly and consistently is to staying hydrated. Overdrinking just causes you to piss out all your electrolytes, making you more dehydrated in the long run. Sometimes the difference between overdrinking and drinking as much of you should isn't actually the amount of fluids you drink, but how much you are eating.
See, what I mean is, hydration is a bit of a complicated process. It isn't as simple as drinking something and becoming hydrated. For the body, how the fluids you drink get absorbed, as well as the concentrations of electrolytes present in the fluids and the cells the fluids come into contact with are all extremely important in the hydration process. Too little electrolytes or too much water means losing electrolytes in your cells and having them get pissed out. The solution of water/fluids outside the cells and the solution of fluids/salts(electrolytes) inside the cells want to reach equilibrium. Since osmosis allows water and salts to permeate the cell membranes, the outside solution and inside solution become a combined sort of super-solution until the outside solution moves on to other parts of the body or is excreted.
Well, having food in you not only changes nutrient/electrolyte levels in your cells and blood, but the food present in your digestive tract actually aids in the slow, more consistent absorption of the fluids you take in. This is important because it means maintaining more stable electrolyte levels and having less of that fluid get excreted as urine and be actually utilized by the body.
So, to help with your orthostatic hypotension problem, try and hydrate yourself better by drinking plenty of fluids (some water, some with electrolytes), and eating properly and consistently. Having a good diet helps in general too. I think this will help you tremendously. |
