Can IV fluids really make me gain that much?!

vingogly · November 2017

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.

JaydedMiss · November 2017

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

TavistockToad · November 2017

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.

Aaron_K123 · November 2017

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.

Aaron_K123 · November 2017

emmylootwo wrote: »

thecharon wrote: »

If you have had a disorder like bulimia and need to gain weight, this place is not for you. In fact, it may cause more harm than good.

??? I had a stomach bug this week. I used to struggle with bulimia several years ago, but am healthy (except for excess weight) now.

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.

robynawitz · November 2017

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.

MarziPanda95 · November 2017

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.

newheavensearth · November 2017

I gained 11 lbs from 4 days worth of continuous IV glucose hydration for hypoglycemia and edema treatment. It was gone in 2 weeks.

lorrpb · November 2017

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.

jgnatca · November 2017

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.

PAV8888 · November 2017

A 15lb scale loss in a month given your current size and activity and available fat was obviously not healthy and did not come from only losing fat. It also appears to be based on scale weight; not trending weight.

There was a hint up-tread that you might have a history that could get triggered by persistent and/or large deficits as well as the general weight loss culture.

You've already ended up in emergency. You are already worried about a single holiday meal that presumably you do not repeat every single day.

I would seriously consider taking a step back and also enlisting my current GP and/or trusted family.

You may want to formulate a more comprehensive and vetted by a third party plan and go at this at a much much much slower pace and smaller deficit than what you're going for.

sarahthes · November 2017

I came out of the hospital after delivering my oldest child weighing the same as I did when I went in. I had loads of complications and got bags and bags of various types of fluids (saline... pitocin... antibiotics... blood transfusions...). Once my body started to shed the excess water I lost about 20 or 25 lbs in 3 days.

Alatariel75 · November 2017

You were dehydrated. That gave you a false reading on the scale because you weighed less than you ought to have if you were properly hydrated. You've now been rehydrated and are clinging to some water weight. That gave you a false reading on the scale because you weighed more than you ought to have due to excess fluid. Your 'true' weight is somewhere between those 2 points, and is a range, not a weight.

emmylootwo · November 2017

I don't know why but something got majorly lost in translation! I regret not checking this thread sooner to clear things up... Sorry about that

1.) I had a little virus or something this week and ate an average of 800 calories a day for three days because I was feeling ill. I do not normally eat 800 calories a day! I weigh about 330 lbs, and I eat 1700-1750 calories a day with no exercise (yet! working on it). I, ahem, had bathroom issues and probably didn't drink enough to replenish... so I suspect that's why I became so dehydrated. Also, I'm losing the recommended ~1% body weight each week for those worried about the 15lb loss.

2.) I did struggle with bulimia in the past when I was in high school. I'm 23 now and have not purged or had any bulimic behaviors in five years. When I said "excess weight," I really meant excess weight - 200 lbs of it from a long and hard recovery and lots of stress. Otherwise, I'm as healthy as can be in regards to the eating disorder.

3.) And, no, I didn't purposely eat 800 calories a day so that I could enjoy Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, my family has decided to push back to Saturday until I am feeling 100% again. I don't know.. I was feeling frustrated with the scale, a bit worried that salty Thanksgiving food was a bad idea to pack on top of it, and still battling those bad thoughts of "ruining everything."

It was a pretty silly question in hindsight -- one that I wish I could go back and talk myself through before posting. I still struggle with that old eating disorder mentality at times but I'm trying my best. I was just really thrown off seeing that large of a weight gain. I didn't think 2 bags of IV fluid could do that. I didn't quite realize what it meant to be rehydrated. I've never been to the ER for dehydration.

Thanks everyone who replied with kind and encouraging advice. I needed it.

jsiricos · November 2017

From a medical point of view - the dizziness etc you described, is also due to low potassium and magnesium (both in the IV fluids) take those supplements and drink a good amount of water, and you should even out. No, Im not a medical professional, I've just had a whole year of bags of fluids, low potassium/magnesium etc (think daily bags..)

Don't let it get to you, stay healthy, add vitamins and pot/mag.

Can IV fluids really make me gain that much?!

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