Can IV fluids really make me gain that much?!
emmylootwo
Posts: 172 Member
I started counting calories again about a month ago and have lost 15 pounds so far. Well, the other day I started feeling sick -- just generally ill -- weak, tired, and a little queasy at times. I almost passed out several times early Tuesday, so I went to the ER where they told me I was pretty dehydrated and gave me two bags of fluids. I went home, felt a little better, napped some more, and ate soup and toast for dinner. Over the past three days, I've managed to eat an average of 800 calories a day when I was feeling well enough to do so.
Stepped on the scale this morning to find that I've gained 9 pounds over the past week. I'm so frustrated. Could it be the IV fluids? I'm not entirely convinced, but maybe it's just the frustration talking.
Stepped on the scale this morning to find that I've gained 9 pounds over the past week. I'm so frustrated. Could it be the IV fluids? I'm not entirely convinced, but maybe it's just the frustration talking.
2
Replies
-
Water isn't weightless7
-
Our bodies are made up mostly of fluid, around 70%,so yes the IV will have had impact on that 'gain' because it added much needed fluids to your body ...but its not fat gain unless you ate 31500 calories over your mainteanance/TDEE last week.3
-
yes0
-
The exact same thing happened to me this week, and it was one of those times when calorie counting has really been a solace. I had a stomach bug and had to get rehydrated via IV. I had 400 calories on Saturday because my stomach was so upset that's all I could keep down and have been under my deficit goal by a little bit every day this week as I'm getting used to food again. So there's no way I could have gained the weight my scale is showing right now and I just have to trust that it will go away once my body is healed. Easier said than done, I know!3
-
Yep, IV fluid gain. I had a 6 pound tumor removed and weighed 3 pounds more post op than pre op from all the fluid. It will take a couple of weeks to go away.8
-
This content has been removed.
-
-
justkeeprunning91 wrote: »The exact same thing happened to me this week, and it was one of those times when calorie counting has really been a solace. I had a stomach bug and had to get rehydrated via IV. I had 400 calories on Saturday because my stomach was so upset that's all I could keep down and have been under my deficit goal by a little bit every day this week as I'm getting used to food again. So there's no way I could have gained the weight my scale is showing right now and I just have to trust that it will go away once my body is healed. Easier said than done, I know!
Thank you. It's just so disheartening to work so hard and step on the scale one day only to feel like you've ruined everything and don't understand how or why. I guess it upsets me more knowing that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I had plans of going over my calorie limit and just enjoying the holiday. Now I don't know if I want to risk it! Haha
1 -
emmylootwo wrote: »justkeeprunning91 wrote: »The exact same thing happened to me this week, and it was one of those times when calorie counting has really been a solace. I had a stomach bug and had to get rehydrated via IV. I had 400 calories on Saturday because my stomach was so upset that's all I could keep down and have been under my deficit goal by a little bit every day this week as I'm getting used to food again. So there's no way I could have gained the weight my scale is showing right now and I just have to trust that it will go away once my body is healed. Easier said than done, I know!
Thank you. It's just so disheartening to work so hard and step on the scale one day only to feel like you've ruined everything and don't understand how or why. I guess it upsets me more knowing that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I had plans of going over my calorie limit and just enjoying the holiday. Now I don't know if I want to risk it! Haha
risk what? you havent gained fat, so dont worry about it.12 -
Yes...after my surgery I was up 5lbs from excess fluid and the gas...(apparently not all gas is weightless)
Give it a bit and it will be fine.
But a piece of advice too...scale weight is only one indicator of how you are doing with this whole weight loss thing. Losing weight means all weight...muscle, fat, fluid...and as a woman you are going to have ups and downs but the main thing for you to look at is the trend.
For example if you eat out at a Chinese place...sodium hello...water retention...scale goes up...but only for a bit....or new exercise...or Time of the month...
Make sure that you are using another measure as well for your success...such as a tape measure or taking comparision pics or clothing size or all of them.3 -
emmylootwo wrote: »justkeeprunning91 wrote: »The exact same thing happened to me this week, and it was one of those times when calorie counting has really been a solace. I had a stomach bug and had to get rehydrated via IV. I had 400 calories on Saturday because my stomach was so upset that's all I could keep down and have been under my deficit goal by a little bit every day this week as I'm getting used to food again. So there's no way I could have gained the weight my scale is showing right now and I just have to trust that it will go away once my body is healed. Easier said than done, I know!
Thank you. It's just so disheartening to work so hard and step on the scale one day only to feel like you've ruined everything and don't understand how or why. I guess it upsets me more knowing that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I had plans of going over my calorie limit and just enjoying the holiday. Now I don't know if I want to risk it! Haha
what???? seriously...you know it's fluid...
Enjoy your holiday...1 day is not going to derail you totally.5 -
Each bag of fluid is a kg.2
-
Well, yeah--that's kind of the whole point. You were dehydrated. They gave you what is probably a 1% saline solution to rehydrate you. You are going to hold on to more fluids for a while so that you don't become dehydrated again.
Also--15 pounds lost in a month, 800 calories in a day? How much do you weigh? How much do you normally eat?9 -
Keep in mind also that your 15 lb loss was not all fat loss. There is often some normal amount of water weight loss at the beginning, then you had some amount of fat loss, and then additional unhealthy water weight loss resulting in your dehydration. For your health, you want to regain the water weight loss that resulted in dehydration. That may not equate to all of the 9lbs you regained, but your body definitely needs some of it.6
-
Well, yeah--that's kind of the whole point. You were dehydrated. They gave you what is probably a 1% saline solution to rehydrate you. You are going to hold on to more fluids for a while so that you don't become dehydrated again.
Also--15 pounds lost in a month, 800 calories in a day? How much do you weigh? How much do you normally eat?
15lbs in 30 days at the start is not a red flag...lots of fluid i imagine.
and the 800 was due to an illness...per the post.5 -
When you’re injured or ill, your body needs calories to heal. I generally think it’s better to aim for maintaining until you feel better, and definitely just enjoy Thanksgiving. If the scale is driving you nuts (even though I’m sure you know it’s water not fat!) maybe try not weighing yourself or a bit? You really, really aren’t going to ruin anything by resting up for another week or two, but you can prolonged your illness by not taking care of yourself. I have a suspicion that you’ll probably see a pretty significant drop on the scale once you’re feeling better.3
-
If you're dehydrated enough to require IV hydration, I wouldn't be surprised if you needed to regain that much in water storage.7
-
It's all water weight. Since you were dehydrated, I'd assume you're going to hold to *some* of that weight, but I'd doubt all 9 pounds. IV saline is heavy, and I know when I needed it in the past, I would quickly gain weight, and then it would come off. You're especially noticing the jump because you were dehydrated, so your body is going to be more apt to hold on to it since it doesn't know that it's going to keep getting fluid.1
-
IV fluids replaces sodium. IV fluid does have sodium in them because dehydration is just that...loss of sodium....so if you are sensitive to salt there will be a gain but it will be temporary. Drink plenty of water and you will be back to normal!0
-
Last time I was hospitalized (fever of unknown origin, how weird is that) they gave me IV hydration for three days and my arms and face looked like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow man. I probably was up 8 to 9 lbs, all water weight, and it was gone in under a week. It'll pass, don't worry!0
-
I had to have my gall bladder out while I was on vacation hundreds of miles from home. I'm on coumadin (blood thinner), and they had to get my clotting factor up before they could operate. I spent 3-4 days with two IVs in at all times before the operation and my arms looked like a junkie's . When I left the hospital, I couldn't get into my pants and they had to get a pair of "big boy" pajama bottoms from lost and found - I bought a pair of XXL sweat pants at a local store for the drive home.
I gained about 20 pounds during my hospital stay, all of it water weight. When I saw my GP at home, he said the water was interstitial (located between the cells rather than within them), so a diuretic wouldn't help, I just needed to be patient. Within a week, I was back to my normal weight. Fastest 20 pounds I ever gained and lost.
To get discouraged and upset over temporary medically-induced weight gain -- that has more to do with your self image and beliefs about your body and dieting than with reason and logic. It's distorted thinking.8 -
So for thanksgiving you plan to overeat tomorow, yet say you havent been able to eat? Im glad the fluid seems to have made you feel beter and i truely hope thats all thats going on and you werent purposely undereating so you can overeat. Go enjoy the day the calories will make you feel beter they are much needed, You wont put anything on in a day. Go eat now to. food is wonderful and necessary4
-
JaydedMiss wrote: »So for thanksgiving you plan to overeat tomorow, yet say you havent been able to eat? Im glad the fluid seems to have made you feel beter and i truely hope thats all thats going on and you werent purposely undereating so you can overeat. Go enjoy the day the calories will make you feel beter they are much needed, You wont put anything on in a day. Go eat now to. food is wonderful and necessary
fair point, but OPs calorie goal is likely to be 1200 so even without eating much it would be easy to go over that with thanksgiving food stuffs.
and actually OP could put on a fair bit in a day... it wont be fat, but it will be scale weight, which obviously bothers her.2 -
emmylootwo wrote: »I started counting calories again about a month ago and have lost 15 pounds so far. Well, the other day I started feeling sick -- just generally ill -- weak, tired, and a little queasy at times. I almost passed out several times early Tuesday, so I went to the ER where they told me I was pretty dehydrated and gave me two bags of fluids. I went home, felt a little better, napped some more, and ate soup and toast for dinner. Over the past three days, I've managed to eat an average of 800 calories a day when I was feeling well enough to do so.
Stepped on the scale this morning to find that I've gained 9 pounds over the past week. I'm so frustrated. Could it be the IV fluids? I'm not entirely convinced, but maybe it's just the frustration talking.
If you were massively dehydrated and they fixed that then yes you would definitely gain weight. Keep in mind your body weight is mostly water. What getting rehydrated didn't do is put a bunch of fat on you so honestly you shouldn't mind, it just means you are healthier now than you were a week ago. Also keep in mind that in addition to water IV bags contain salt (154mM saline) which would have helped replace sodium in your body which was likely also depleted. This would help you to retain the water they were giving you longer term.
If I were you I would be less concerned by my scale weight which isn't that meaningful and more concerned that my recent diet choices have lead me to be in a state where I was almost passing out. Might want to assess what got you to the point that you had to go to the hospital rather than the number on your scale. Sounds to me like what you are doing caused you to lose a lot of water.
A lot of fad diets prey on this effect, instructing you to do things that will essentially deplete the sodium in your body then dehydrate you in order to give the appearance of losing a lot of weight quickly when in fact the weight you are losing is mostly water weight. If I were to guess what your diet was I would guess it is a "whole foods" avoid anything processed diet where you were drinking a lot of water for a while. Then for whatever reason you drank less water for a few days or had vomiting diarrhea (stomach bug) and the result was the queasiness and massive dehydration. Basically you didn't eat sodium, you drank lots of water flushing the sodium in your body out and then when you drank less you had little water retained to compensate and you felt ill.5 -
emmylootwo wrote: »
The "excess weight now" is you being rehydrated, meaning you are more healthy not less healthy. Your health is not a number on a scale, your health is you not passing out from fatigue onset by massive dehydration.6 -
I would assume that you received two 500 mL bags of normal saline, which would equal about 1 kg per the standard conversion, but as other posters have pointed out your body will tend to hold onto that since you were dehydrated (and normal saline does contain a fair amount of sodium). Did you receive any other medications while you were in the ER? Corticosteroids, for one, will cause you to retain water like crazy.0
-
Yep! A couple of years back I had a round of a type of chemo, for an autoimmune disease. I had a bag of saline before, then the chemo, then another half bag of saline. I gained a good 5-6lbs every time I went in for the treatment, but it always went away before the next treatment the week after.0
-
I gained 11 lbs from 4 days worth of continuous IV glucose hydration for hypoglycemia and edema treatment. It was gone in 2 weeks.0
-
emmylootwo wrote: »justkeeprunning91 wrote: »The exact same thing happened to me this week, and it was one of those times when calorie counting has really been a solace. I had a stomach bug and had to get rehydrated via IV. I had 400 calories on Saturday because my stomach was so upset that's all I could keep down and have been under my deficit goal by a little bit every day this week as I'm getting used to food again. So there's no way I could have gained the weight my scale is showing right now and I just have to trust that it will go away once my body is healed. Easier said than done, I know!
Thank you. It's just so disheartening to work so hard and step on the scale one day only to feel like you've ruined everything and don't understand how or why. I guess it upsets me more knowing that Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I had plans of going over my calorie limit and just enjoying the holiday. Now I don't know if I want to risk it! Haha
You kind of "ruined this" by eating and drinking so little. Your weight while dehydrated was unrealistically low. You've received very good advice here so should have a good understanding of how and why this happened.5 -
Put your weight in to a tracker like https://trendweight.com/. It's the trend line that really matters.
You have to drink more every day so you don't need to go back to emergency. This is healthy.4
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.6K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.3K Health and Weight Loss
- 176K Food and Nutrition
- 47.5K Recipes
- 232.6K Fitness and Exercise
- 431 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.6K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8.1K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.4K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.8K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.2K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions