Ashley Summers was on vacation with her family when she died from a rare complication caused by her sodium levels dropping rapidly
A Monticello, Indiana, mom of two has died after drinking too much water too quickly in a rare, but fatal case of “water toxicity.”
Ashley Summers, 35, was on vacation with her family on Lake Freeman over Fourth of July weekend when she landed in the hospital, according to a report on WRTV.
“They were out on the boat all weekend long,” her older brother, Devon Miller, told the news station. “She loved being on the water. She loved being on the lake.”
On Tuesday, July 4, Summers had reportedly felt dehydrated, saying she had a headache and felt lightheaded.
That’s when she began drinking a lot of water — in a short period of time.
"Someone said she drank four bottles of water in that 20 minutes. I mean, an average water bottle is like 16 ounces, so that was 64 ounces that she drank in the span of 20 minutes. That’s half a gallon," said Miller.
According to the Mayo Clinic, women should consume about 2.7 liters of fluids a day — about 91 ounces — with 20% of that coming from food.
When Summers got home, she passed out in her garage — and never regained consciousness.
"My sister, Holly, called me, and she was just an absolute wreck. She was like 'Ashley is in the hospital. She has brain swelling, they don’t know what’s causing it, they don’t know what they can do to get it to go down, and it’s not looking good,'" said Miller.
The cause: Hyponatremia — also known as water toxicity, which occurs when the amount of sodium in your blood is “abnormally low” according to the Mayo Clinic.
“Drinking too much water [can] cause the sodium in your body to become diluted. When this happens, your body's water levels rise, and your cells begin to swell,” the Mayo Clinic adds.
And for Summers, drinking too much water proved fatal.
"It was a shock to all of us when they first started talking about water toxicity. And it was like, ‘This is a thing?’" Miller told WRTV.
While rare, water toxicity can be fatal. The Cleveland Clinic cautions that some underlying medical conditions, and consuming alcohol — particularly beer — can increase your risk of it.
Also called “water intoxication,” the Nation Institute of Health noted that “early detection is crucial to prevent severe hyponatremia, which can lead to seizures, coma, and death.”
The Harvard School of Public Health noted that while athletes and those with kidney problems are more prone to hyponatremia, “women and children are also more susceptible to hyponatremia because of their smaller body size.”
Gatorade sucks ass, too much sugar
they now make a product marketed as gatorfit which is basically the same shit without all the sugar. It still has some sugar tho because the whole point of it is to utilize the sodium-glucose cotransporters in your intestines to absorb more water
There's also pedialyte which is oral rehydration solution marketed for kids but idk if it's cheaper or not
Pedialyte is pretty nice, they also make the only low-sugar ice pops I know of- the rest are either tons of sugar or super sweet sugar substitutes. The pedialyte ones are like 15 calories so they're mildly sweet, and are good hydration/cooling
Yeah pedialyte is good it's like legit medical treatment for dehydration and will save your life if you get the cholera. I just don't know if it's cheaper than the gatorade product (but it probably is)
Nah it’s more expensive but not by much
Surprising if the gatorfit stuff is cheaper, since they sell pedialyte in much bigger bottles. But i guess one is marketed as a medical thing for kids and the other is a sports drank and you can charge more a premium for the former
Gatorade makes their own version of Pedialyte called Gatorlyte, which actually has a better electrolyte mix and comes in a zero sugar variety.
No they make gatorlyte but that still has too much sugar lol the "gatorfit" thing has much less
Yes, I know the regular Gatorlyte has 12g of sugar, (which is less than a banana), but like I said, they have a zero sugar variety that is only 3g of carbs and has magnesium, unlike the Gatorfit.
You want some sugar to activate your sodium-glucose cotransporters in your intestines, so a "0 sugar" sports drink isn't gonna do that
If you can find it, Pocari sweat is the best electrolyte thing I've tried.
That's got like 6g of sugar per 100ml but the gatorfit shit has 1g in the whole bottle. You need sugar and sodium to activate the sodium glucose cotransporters but you don't need THAT MUCH sugar, and what I am talking about is entirely separate from replenishing electrolytes (which it also does)
Water sucks, Gatorade's betteeerrr!