Water - the Miracle Drug

Water is the blood in our veins.
-Levi Eshkol, Israeli Prime Minister, 1962

And Allah has created from water every living creature: so of them is that which walks upon its belly, and of them is that which walks upon two feet, and of them is that which walks upon four; Allah creates what He pleases; surely Allah has power over all things.
-Qur'an 24.45, M. H. Shakir's translation

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.
-Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) Canticle of the Sun circa 1225


Water is one of the coolest substances on the planet. It's also a fantastic medicine. You shoot it out of a water hose onto a wound and it's hydrotherapy. Warm it up, soak a washcloth in it and it becomes a warm compress. Make ice cubes out of it and you can ice down a painful knee. Sterilize it and give it intravenously and it can resuscitate life.

I have a little patient in hospital today with a condition called hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE - I'll post on that sometime). 90% of her therapy at this time is water. IV fluids make or brake HGE patients. The antibiotics are pretty important, too. But just getting the fluid volume back under control is the miracle cure.

One of the main reasons a patient dies from anaphylaxis (aside from the not being able to breathe thing, which is also considered a bad, bad thing) is that histamine causes all of the blood vessels to open up at once. The body can't handle that. There's not enough fluid to go around and everything collapses. The heart stops from lack of blood to move around. Treatment? WATER. ( Well, water and epinephrine and fancy medications and a crack team of health professionals, but you get my point) Giant doses of WATER are the first line treatment for shock.


How cool is that? Water ain't just water, is it?



AMH