Mother-of-one, 41, nearly died after drinking ‘too much’ water – but worryingly, it wasn’t THAT much
A mother almost died after drinking so much water that her blood sodium levels fell dangerously low.
Nina Munro, 41, drank about four liters of water a day in an attempt to ‘flush away’ what she thought was a cold – unaware that she herself was ‘slowly drowning’.
But the excessive amounts of water, combined with medications she was taking for colds and flu, flooded her system and she had a seizure.
Ms Munro was placed in intensive care for five days in June this year while doctors tried to stabilize her levels.
“Doctors later told me they didn’t know how I survived,” Ms Munro said. “I was slowly drowning myself and I didn’t even know it.”
Nina Munro, 41, pictured with her husband Ken and daughter, drank about four liters of water a day in an attempt to ‘flush away’ a cold – unaware she was ‘slowly drowning’ herself
Ms Munro was given a range of different medications and told to drink more water to get rid of a chest infection
The NHS recommends people drink six to eight glasses of water and other fluids a day – enough so that their urine turns a clear pale yellow color. Mrs Munro now only drinks when she is thirsty, a maximum of about 1.5 liters per day
She added: “My husband said I wouldn’t do anything without a glass of water by my side. I think someone was looking out for me. I thought I was a super healthy person.
“They wouldn’t let me leave the hospital until my sodium levels started to rise.
‘I didn’t see my daughter for five days, which was so hard. I didn’t want her to see me in the state I was in.
‘The first few days in intensive care I couldn’t drink anything and when I left hospital I was on a restricted diet of 1.5 liters and of course I drink less now.
“They told me to drink only from thirst.”
Drinking too much water can cause sodium levels in the blood to become abnormally low.
Sodium is essential for regulating the amount of water in the body and controlling blood pressure, nerves and muscles.
Too little electrolyte, medically known as hyponatremia, causes a build-up of water in and around the body’s cells.
This causes cells to swell – including those in the brain – and can cause symptoms ranging from mild to life-threatening, such as headaches, vomiting and seizures.
The normal sodium level in the blood is 135 to 145 milliequivalents per liter (mEq/L). Hyponatremia occurs when the level falls below 135 mEq/l.
The NHS recommends people drink six to eight glasses of water and other fluids a day – enough so that their urine turns a clear pale yellow color.
Six weeks before she was admitted, Ms Munro started having mild coughs and colds and started to feel generally unwell.
She said, “Our daughter is in kindergarten and always comes home with little animals.”
She developed strep throat in May and lost her voice, and her daughter had pneumonia – from which Ms Munro also unknowingly contracted mycoplasma – a bacteria that can cause respiratory disease.
“I also had a cold, an earache and a sore throat that I kept going to the doctor for,” she said.
“I never felt like I had time to rest from the constant demands of parenthood and work.”
Ms Munro visited five doctors over the six-week period and was given a range of different medications and told to drink more water.
She said: ‘I’ve had steroids three times, antibiotics three times, nasal sprays and Nurofen, which also lowers your sodium – it’s been a perfect storm to lower my sodium.’
Things started to get worse in the days before she was admitted on June 15.
“I left a gym class because I felt like I wasn’t moving right,” she said.
“I went to a local hospital and they said ‘drink lots of water’ because they thought I was having withdrawal symptoms from the steroids.”
The next day, her eyes blurred and experts told her she needed to drink more, she recalled.
By June 15, she had been vomiting for three days and “drank about four liters that day and (at) no food.”
“I kept thinking I had to drink all this water to wash it away,” she said.
‘I’ve always tried to drink at least two liters a day, if not more.’
That night, her husband called an ambulance who took her to the hospital.
Her sodium level was 100 milliequivalents per liter – well below the recommended minimum of 135 – and anything below that was considered low.
Doctors said the cause of her low sodium levels was due to drinking too much water combined with medications she was taking for a recent mild cold, plus a mycoplasma infection.
Now fully recovered, Ms Munro knows she is lucky to be alive, but admits her memory of her time in intensive care is still patchy
Ms Munro said doctors told her the cause of her low sodium levels was due to drinking too much water combined with medicine she was taking for a recent mild cold, plus a mycoplasma infection.
She says her time in intensive care was a bit patchy, but knows she is lucky to be alive.
After a short monitoring period, she made a full recovery and is now back to full health, although she will not be able to drive for six months due to her attack.
She said: ‘I know a blood test would have picked it up straight away.
‘There must be other people in the same boat.
‘The blood test would have shown that the sodium level was very low, so it could have been noticed earlier.
‘I think it will take a while before I can trust that everything will be okay. It was like my body had gone through a hard reset and had to reboot.”