Can I catch up on my daily water by drinking it all at once?

[Music]

Welcome back to the Kidney Stone Diet podcast, the show about reducing your kidney stone risk and living your best life. I'm your host and fellow student, Jeff Sarris.

And I'm Jill Harris, your very middle-aged kidney stone prevention nurse. And I'm sorry if you're watching me on YouTube, I am fanning myself. Because we're doing episode after episode right now.

We're taping a lot of episodes, and I'm all heated up, people, in the best way possible, I can assure you.

Definitely. And you're very supportive of them. You're their biggest fan.

I love you, Jeff. I do.

I had to do that. I'm like that's just, that'd be the worst joke right now, so I think it's, it's pretty fitting.

I love it. I love it.

Okay, so we have another, another question. We have a couple questions today. We are talking about water, and our first question–

Two-for day! Two-for day, okay.

Here comes our first question, I believe from Monique.

Okay, Monique, let's go.

Hi, Jill. My name is Monique, and I'm from the Sacramento area of California. And I have a question about water.

It's been the hardest thing to do to increase so much water. If I forget to drink water in the first half of the day, is it okay to drink all 85 or so ounces of water on the last half of the day? Just wondering.

Thank you so much for your podcast and everything you're doing and all the work you're doing. I appreciate it so much. I've had a difficult time with kidney stones for the last 10 years, and I just found you recently.

So, thank you for all that you do. Bye.

Are we not the luckiest people in the whole world?

Yeah, we seriously have like the best listeners. Everyone's so kind.

We do.

Like, I mean, you look at YouTube, I mean, it's not the, the YouTube comments that like people talk about. It's, yeah, supportive people, just we're all in this together.

Well, I'll tell you what. Yes! And I, what, well, what do we love doing?

We love fostering a community, and I love making a safe space. That's why the Facebook group is so popular, and I really want the YouTube channel, and Spotify, and Apple, or wherever the hell you're listening to me, want all of it to be a safe place for kidney stone formers, because of all the things you've been through and the lack of help, the pain that everyone always talks about, all the surgeries you've had to have.

And so I, I think people are just, they're just very kind and appreciative to be able to get some help.

So Monique, water. Oh, and I will have to say, when my friends were like, "You're going to put yourself on YouTube? Do you know how mean people are on YouTube?" I'm like, first of all, I don't really give a darn what people say about me, God bless.

If you're really going to pick on the old kidney stone prevention nurse, then that's, that's not my problem. But the other thing is, is like, right, Jeff, we have just the best community ever in the whole wide world, so it's not anything like that. And if anybody probably said anything bad about us, a lot of people would be very mad.

We wouldn't even have to say anything. It's happened on Facebook many times!

Yeah, yeah, because yeah, what you're promoting–

Yeah, we have yeah, loyal people.

Yeah, you know like what you're promoting. You have so much experience, but people want, have agendas, have different agendas who may show up in places. So it's really nice to have such a supportive community who's like, "No, we know this works.

Jill knows this works. We trust her because of X, Y, Z."

Right, right. All right. So Monique.

Monique, water. This is a, a wonderful question, Monique, and I'm sorry you've been through so much first of all for the past 10 years, that's much too long to be dealing with this stone disease, that is. Water.

Many people come to me and say, "What do you want, Jill? I'm a teacher. I can't drink all day long.

I can't leave my students," before COVID, "I can't leave my students in a classroom. So, look, it doesn't matter. It's okay because when I get home at 4:00, I'll just drink all night long."

I'll remind you guys that when you are dehydrated, if you don't drink between the hours of 8:00 and 4:00, you are dehydrated. You can't make up for that. You can now get rehydrated starting at 4:00, you can get rehydrated, but you cannot make up for those hours that you were not getting any water and you were dehydrated.

Hope that makes sense, which means that urine's sitting in your body for a very long time. Crystals are not wearing masks, they're not social distancing. They want to hang out.

They want to hang out, no matter what anybody says.

So, that is why we want you to drink a lot of water and constantly flush everything out, okay? So, many patients do this because of their job, their occupation. So, and it's very difficult for them.

And so, sometimes I have to give a little tough love to those patients. And when they come see me, I'm like, "Look, you have a choice. You can, you can talk to your people at work and say, 'Look, I have a medical condition, I need to take care of it.

I am going to have to leave throughout the day here and there to, you know, go to the bathroom. I have to do that.' And you're going to, you're just going to have to do that."

And so, I understand, I do understand your plight, but again, because I'm always looking at outcomes for people, it's either you figure out a way to do this now or you're going to have more surgeries in the future. And so you've got to realize what I see a lot in my practice. A lot of people come to me, they work with me privately or in the Kidney Stone Prevention Course, and they've, you know, they've lost a kidney because of chronic kidney stones.

They have CKD and now they're getting stones. There's a lot of things going on here.

And so, we don't want to increase your risk of other diseases because of these kidney stones, okay? So, my concern for you, and I know people are like, "Well, that's kind of rough, Jill. You're not appreci–" I do appreciate it.

I appreciate what it may have to entail to get more water in your body. I promise you I do, but my, but on my watch, I'm always going to be fast forwarding in your life and thinking about what are the best ways, what do we really have to do to prevent new kidney stones.

And that's going to be finding a way to get your class covered or do something so you can urinate throughout the day, okay? And so, my patients do it. They figure it out.

So, that's, that's going to be that. The other thing, let's talk about what beautiful Monique said. She said, so now I'm going to, I've been trying to get the 80 ounces in all night long.

Well, again, I'm going to think that through and say, "All right," even though she didn't say it, I know my patients often say this to me, "So I'm drinking all my fluids." Yeah, they all talk like that. I don't know why I always have that voice, but…

"Jill! " So, I'm drinking all my fluids at nighttime, and so what I'm thinking about, Monique's going to float away. She ain't going to get a good night's sleep because she's going to have to pee three, four times.

I'm old, I already got to get up twice even if I didn't drink nothing. So, if I'm drinking 80 ounces before bed, I'm going to be up all night! And guess what happens the next day?

When we're up all night, first of all, it's very difficult to go back to sleep. You can just have so many damn meditation apps, okay? They don't always work, okay?

So then you're trying to get back to sleep. You're up. You're frustrated.

You keep looking at the alarm clock. We all know how this goes. Now, you're exhausted the next day.

Why do I care about that? Number one, sleep is very, very important. Your body needs to rest.

It needs to rest. And I know in our culture we're like, "Oh, I only slept four hours." "Oh, you? I only slept three." "Oh, me?

I was up all night." And we wear that as a badge of courage. Is that right, Jeff? Badge of courage?

Yeah, like a badge of honor.

Yeah, thank you. God bless him being here. People are like, "Really?

You're going to have somebody else do the show with you?" I'm like, "Have you met me? I need that. I need the help.

Okay, cause he's young."

Yeah, we're just a good, I think it's just a good team. You don't, you don't need me here at all. You got this, but I think it's good to–

I would be lost.

Yeah, good to work together.

I would be lost. Okay. So, the problem is we need our sleep.

This machine has to rest, just like we have to plug in our computer, it needs recharge, we need to recharge. The bigger thing is, whether you have kidney stones, whatever you're battling the next day, you're a stay-at-home mom dealing with four kids, you're going to work, whatever you're doing, going to work out of the home, we don't make the best choices when we don't get a good night's sleep.

No one ever says, no one ever wakes up after getting two hours of sleep and says, "Hey, Mickey! Go get the beet salad, will ya?" No, nobody ever says that! You want a burrito, you want ice cream.

Nobody makes good decisions when they're exhausted. They want comfort food, so you can't make good healthy lifestyle choices if you're exhausted all day long. You're going to be cranky.

Nobody's going to want to be around you. You're just not going to function well.

So, please, don't save all your fluids for at nighttime. You're going to have to, I don't have any workaround, people, with this. You're going to have to figure out a way.

It would be, I take it as seriously as this, as seriously as this. That would be like a diabetic coming to me and saying, "I can't get my insulin shots all day. I can't." You're going to have to find a way.

And I do know patients like that, by the way. Or, "I can't eat all day because I don't want to do my insulin at work," whatever.

You know, as a nurse, I hear a lot of different things concerning kidney stone stuff and kidney stuff. So, you, you have to find a way. I, I, you just have to find a way.

It's your responsibility to stay well. Water is also, though, not an easy thing to do. I know every doctor will tell you, " Susie!

Tomorrow you got to start drinking a gallon of water." Susie can't drink no gallon of water when she hasn't had two glasses her whole life a day. That's not going to happen. So, Monique, get a few glasses throughout, you know, I would say a couple glasses, if you, let me use this as an example.

If you have three glasses of water a day right now, that's all you have, next week, try four glasses a day. The next week after that, five, and six, and seven. Each week increase one glass per day until you get where you need to be.

Where do I need to be, Jill? Where you're producing 2 and 1/2 L of urine or more a day. You don't got to be producing 6 L.

I see urine collections all day long and they show me 6 L. Okay, come on, Billy Bob. Is that what you really do?

"Well, no, Jill, but I didn't want to– I didn't want to catch what for from the doctor." So, you don't got to pee unnecessarily either, people. You, you have to live your life. So, 2 and 1/2 to 3 L a day is what we want to come out of you.

All right.

Yeah, and I like that you talked about sleep, too. We might do an episode purely on sleep because it is so important. And like you said, you can't, you can't get up under-rested and overcome your chem- overcome like your internal chemistry, because like I think it's ghrelin, like there's all these systems that, yeah, when you don't get enough sleep–

Well, ghrelin is a hormone that comes and punches you in the face, as my friend Coach Greg will say. He's a YouTube fitness guy that I love. And it, and that's what makes us hungry, so yeah, that's going to be overreactive for sure.

Yeah, and like you're not going to willpower your way through that. Like you need the sleep to, to actually have a, a great day. So, yeah, we'll have to dive into sleep I think on one episode.

Yeah! Yes.

But, yeah, we have another question about water that we will go to right now.

Okay.

This is Lorine from Moore, Oklahoma, and I have a question for Jill, about water. I know the importance of drinking water to reach our goals each day, but is there any benefit from drinking a specific water or avoiding a specific water? If so, what do we, what, what's the ideal water for us to drink and what water should we stay away from?

Thank you.

Was her name, Jeff, Noreen?

Yeah, either Noreen or Lorine.

Yeah, Lorine, Lorine.

Yeah, it was, it's hard to tell sometimes just because the cell phone quality, unfortunately.

Right, I, yeah, I really do like addressing people by their name. Anyway, so what's the best water to drink? Guess what I buy!

Nothing, I get tap water. Dr. Coe, too, we always, we're always like, can you believe all the money people spend on, on water?

You know. I just drink regular old tap water. So, remember when you're trying to hydrate yourself, all fluids count, water is best.

"Can I drink whiskey all day long?" "No, Bob, you can't drink whiskey all day long!" You can have a drink or two, that's fine.

But again, you know, you need to, water is best. Do I care if it's Evian or Smartwater, or this or that? No, I really don't.

I'm not a fan of you guys spending extra money unless it's something that makes you happy. You may say, "Look, I love Smartwater. I'm using that because I drink more." God bless, beautiful, go on your way, dear one.

Go ahead and do that. That's fine. So, I don't care about that.

What I don't love is I don't think you need to spend your extra nickels on higher pH stuff. First of all, they barely even raise nothing or lower nothing. I think that's just marketing bull-do.

Also, some of you have high really high pHs, urine pHs, and you don't want it increased. So, stop buying alkaline water, please. I just think they're marketing junk in a way to take your fluid, money.

Not fluid! Your money away. So, I'm not a believer in that.

I drink tap water. But if you wanted like a LaCroix, Bubly water, Perrier, whatever makes you happy. I know that there have been some doctors that for certain patients, because they may have CKD, chronic kidney disease, they're like, "Please don't use carbonated water."

So, I'm not necessarily going to recommend carbonated water, because I don't know everyone's medical conditions here, but I will say that any bottled water, I don't care what you choose as long as you choose to drink enough of it to produce 2 and 1/2 to 3 L a day, okay? So, have at it, but I personally don't understand unless some people are worried about their well water.

To those people I say, "Listen, test it. Let's see how much sodium is in there."

You know, I don't, you know, so if you, if you drink more from drinking things like Evian, or Smartwater, or whatever those products are, please feel free to use them if that's what, that's what makes you happy. Dr. Coe and I, we just drink regular tap water.

That's what we do.

Yeah, if it's convenient and it suits your lifestyle, perfect. But yeah, I think that's wonderful advice. And yeah, if you have any questions, whether about water or anything else, and you'd like your voicemail featured on a future episode, be sure to leave us a voicemail at 773-789-8763.

Yeah, I think this was a good one. We covered a couple topics smushed together, but makes sense.

Yeah, I like those two-fers. I like them.

Yeah, it makes sense to put them together because, yeah, they balance well. But yeah, if you want to, if you're enjoying the show, be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, check it out on YouTube, which, yeah, we are ecstatic how the YouTube has grown. Like we're already over a couple thousand subscribers, thousands–

I know! How about here a week? Yes!

And also, what, so I love YouTube. I've changed toilet bulbs, I've I've learned how to cook. I love YouTube, so I was very I was thrilled.

I also love Spotify. I'm a big Spotify fan. I listen to my podcast on that.

Anyway, I like all of it, but you need to, just like I do, hit the bell button so you know. Hit that bell thing. That it looks like a bell on here, on YouTube, and so you'll be notified when the next show is up.

So, I always like to be notified, because I forget when things are happening. And also, yeah, subscribe to the YouTube channel, because then other people can find us.

Yeah, and by hitting the bell, I mean that subscribing and hitting the bell does help us reach more people. Like the quicker, the sooner people watch a video after it's published, which every Tuesday, Tuesday morning we publish a new episode of the show. But the sooner people watch, the more YouTube is like, "Oh, people like it." And also comments, if you have questions about an episode or want to comment on anything, please leave us a comment.

Jill responds to everything on YouTube, and–

I love the comments! As a matter of fact, let me start something right now, just thinking about it. If, so, so, for these callers that called today, if, let's, what have you done?

You, you can help, too. This is a community. This is what, this is what we want to foster here.

So, in the comments below, and I'll heart it, of course, for you making an effort and helping, please write what are the ways in which that you get your water in throughout the day, despite the occupation you have, okay? So, comment on that.

And then the other thing is, what is your favorite water? What did you do to make yourself drink more water? So, help other people, please.

The community is very good, especially on the Facebook page. I want the same thing on YouTube. Help each other, so other people can understand that they're not alone in this disease, and there's other people struggling, too.

And so you can help other people that are trying to increase their water. In what ways helped you, and if you have an occupation that it's been difficult to work around, what did you do to make it less of an obstacle to get your water in during the day? Yeah, Jeff, why aren't we doing that?

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. Yeah, we'd love to have more, more, dialogue in the comments, and everyone can help. Everyone has their own experience and can contribute their approach to, to the topic.

Yeah, we should, yeah, every week let's try to throw something in like that.

Yeah, I'm going to, I just thought of that. Yes, that's great.

Yeah, I like it. So, again, thanks for listening and be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening right now, and we will see you next time.

Thank you so much. What a wonderful show. I love this one.

I love having two, two for one!

Yeah. See ya.

Bye, everybody.