CAP Talk

Operations => Safety => Topic started by: RADIOMAN015 on May 22, 2010, 05:37:01 PM

Title: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: RADIOMAN015 on May 22, 2010, 05:37:01 PM
Check out the May 2010 edition of "The Sentinel" (soon to be "The Beacon"), there's a chart on the last page on urine color to determine hydration levels. :angel:   For the most part this looks like a challenge to anyone engaged in field (rural woodlands/grasslands/etc) operations.  They will have to carry a Pee evaluation cup with them to make this work  8) ::)   So ya ground types better add this to your ops checklist of equipment requirements >:D
RM
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: EMT-83 on May 22, 2010, 05:50:14 PM
Your smileys appear to be down a quart!
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: JC004 on May 22, 2010, 06:01:29 PM
They're doing it wrong.

WIWAC, encampment:

Flight Sgt/Commander: "What is the color of your PEE?!"

Cadets:  "Crystal clear, sergeant/sir!"

8)
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 06:35:23 PM
Those charts are actually a really good wake up call.

They are posted above every urinal at Great Lakes.  Obviously there is some logistics involved with ground pounders.  My fix,  I almost never take my camel bak hose out of my mouth.  Passes the time and keeps me healthy.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: Eclipse on May 22, 2010, 07:09:24 PM
Quote from: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 06:35:23 PM
I almost never take my camel bak hose out of my mouth.

(http://www.afblues.com/comics/2008-11-24.jpg)
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: PHall on May 22, 2010, 07:54:50 PM
Quote from: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 06:35:23 PM
Those charts are actually a really good wake up call.

They are posted above every urinal at Great Lakes.  Obviously there is some logistics involved with ground pounders.  My fix,  I almost never take my camel bak hose out of my mouth.  Passes the time and keeps me healthy.

You can over hydrate too. And it will kill you just as dead as being dehydrated will too.
Nature likes a balance, so does your body.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: a2capt on May 22, 2010, 08:06:31 PM
Yeah, I'll never have to worry, at my rate, of over-hydrating. Just keeping up with it can be royally challenging.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: vento on May 22, 2010, 08:13:57 PM
Quote from: PHall on May 22, 2010, 07:54:50 PM
Quote from: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 06:35:23 PM
Those charts are actually a really good wake up call.

They are posted above every urinal at Great Lakes.  Obviously there is some logistics involved with ground pounders.  My fix,  I almost never take my camel bak hose out of my mouth.  Passes the time and keeps me healthy.

You can over hydrate too. And it will kill you just as dead as being dehydrated will too.
Nature likes a balance, so does your body.

Indeed, water poisoning is serious. Amazing it happens to marathon runners and people from heat stress. I always thought they needed hydration the most...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 10:53:12 PM
Wow you guys are really serious about literal translation.  Unfortunately I can't spell very well so I won't try to help you understand.

I wish I could be a fly on the wall when the thought process goes from dehydration to water poisoning. 





Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: raivo on May 23, 2010, 01:05:10 AM
I'm not an expert, but if I remember right you have to work pretty hard to over-hydrate yourself.

Anyways... we had these at OTS. Unhelpfully, there was enough "variation" in the ink color that you might be fine on one card, and in danger on another card.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: SarDragon on May 23, 2010, 01:17:41 AM
Look up 'hyponatremia'. That's the fancy name for the result of over hydration.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: SJFedor on May 25, 2010, 05:12:48 AM
Quote from: raivo on May 23, 2010, 01:05:10 AM
I'm not an expert, but if I remember right you have to work pretty hard to over-hydrate yourself.

Seen it 4 times this year so far, 2 from athletes, and 2 from suicide attempts. Really.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: pbcheez on June 23, 2010, 04:08:08 AM
the lighter the better. lol they went ape [mess] about this in BMT. laminated color index sheets at every stall/urinal
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: Nathan on June 23, 2010, 03:41:28 PM
Most people who end up with water-intoxication are either forcing themselves or being forced to drink a TON of water. It's pretty rare to accidentally drink that much water, and the only cases I've heard of is due to people who are on drugs (ecstasy, mainly). Your body definitely starts telling you when you've had enough water, which is why I'm sometimes skeptical of the waternazis in CAP who force anybody not in the act of eating or talking to be drinking.

There have been times in CAP (as a much younger cadet...) where I definitely knew I was getting overhydrated, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't being overexerted, but was still being forced to drink like I was. It made the safety officer angry when I started telling him that I had enough, as he apparently believed that wasn't possible, and that I as a young cadet was not capable of gauging my own level of thirst accurately.

I'm not sure what an "overdose" level would be or how it corresponds with body weight. Given, though, that the standard military canteen holds a quart of water, and there was a case of a child dying after drinking three quarts of water in less than four hours, we should probably be wary of hard-and-fast standards like "one canteen an hour" (which I have seen at at least one encampment).

1 quart = about 1 liter. The Mayo Clinic recommends around two liters a day (http://"http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/nu00283"), so about two canteens per day. Granted, CAP cadets at encampment are generally losing water through stress and sweat, which means we need to take into account a necessity for a bit more water than average. But one canteen per hour = roughly 15 liters per day, which is 7 times more than the generally recommended amount.

Which, again, is why I'm more of an advocate of teaching cadets the signs of dehydration, telling them to drink whenever they feel the slightest bit thirsty (an obvious sign of dehydration), telling them to check their urine color and output (roughly), and having designated times during the day to drink water that, even if they weren't drinking at any other time during the day, would be enough to ensure they aren't going to collapse. When you establish a standard of something like "a canteen per hour", you risk a cadet ignoring their own body messages of "too much" in favor of what they assume to be wiser knowledge, and risk doing damage to themselves.

Just a thought.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: vmstan on August 17, 2010, 01:42:32 AM
"Clear and copious" is what we were always taught in Boy Scouts.

The reason for the waternazish behavior of some (myself included) is because it's easy to forget to drink when you're out running around in the woods having a good time, or focused on a mission. I've also had situations were cadets have refused to carry water or take water when given to them, because they think it's the "tough" thing to do -- ignoring the fact that our solders, marines and airmen in Iraq wouldn't go anywhere without something to drink.

It seems better to harp on them that they need to be drinking all the time then to say nothing at all... because what I've found is there comes a happy medium.

I've been in plenty of situations where people (myself included) have been dehydrated, complained of headaches, even collapsed, due to lack of water. I have NEVER been in a situation where someone got sick because of too much water. I don't think I ever will either. Maybe when I do, I'll adjust my thinking.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: a2capt on August 17, 2010, 02:21:25 AM
There's a chart for the other function, too. .. and apparently.. as we learned at a weekend Mission Pilot school safety briefing  .. the top is not the best, but rather somewhere in the middle.


(http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/7717ddd3-f3fb-47e9-9ece-e759f52207eb.jpg)
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: Cobra1597 on August 17, 2010, 03:18:34 AM
I've overhydrated myself once, at the first airshow I worked at with CAP way back in 1998, at 13 years old. I had one of those Platypus bladders, and was drinking it for all I was worth, but hadn't had much to eat (I was having trouble finding anything to eat out there that didn't have ham or some other pig product).

Urine was nice and clear, so I thought I was safe, but I was going to the bathroom literally every ten minutes. Unfortunately, no on on my team, including my senior member supervision, had any idea that too much water could be a problem. Towards the end of the day, I started feeling really sick, and went to the medical tent. They identified my problem immediately, and had me eating an apple to start balancing my electrolytes.

It figured that my uncle, who was in the Air Force at the time and worked at the base the airshow was at, would find me in the medical tent, instead of when I was working the flight line with the Thunderbirds.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: desertengineer1 on August 17, 2010, 06:29:49 AM
Quote from: Nathan on June 23, 2010, 03:41:28 PM
Most people who end up with water-intoxication are either forcing themselves or being forced to drink a TON of water. It's pretty rare to accidentally drink that much water, and the only cases I've heard of is due to people who are on drugs (ecstasy, mainly). Your body definitely starts telling you when you've had enough water, which is why I'm sometimes skeptical of the waternazis in CAP who force anybody not in the act of eating or talking to be drinking.

There have been times in CAP (as a much younger cadet...) where I definitely knew I was getting overhydrated, mainly due to the fact that I wasn't being overexerted, but was still being forced to drink like I was. It made the safety officer angry when I started telling him that I had enough, as he apparently believed that wasn't possible, and that I as a young cadet was not capable of gauging my own level of thirst accurately.

I'm not sure what an "overdose" level would be or how it corresponds with body weight. Given, though, that the standard military canteen holds a quart of water, and there was a case of a child dying after drinking three quarts of water in less than four hours, we should probably be wary of hard-and-fast standards like "one canteen an hour" (which I have seen at at least one encampment).

1 quart = about 1 liter. The Mayo Clinic recommends around two liters a day (http://"http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/nu00283"), so about two canteens per day. Granted, CAP cadets at encampment are generally losing water through stress and sweat, which means we need to take into account a necessity for a bit more water than average. But one canteen per hour = roughly 15 liters per day, which is 7 times more than the generally recommended amount.

Which, again, is why I'm more of an advocate of teaching cadets the signs of dehydration, telling them to drink whenever they feel the slightest bit thirsty (an obvious sign of dehydration), telling them to check their urine color and output (roughly), and having designated times during the day to drink water that, even if they weren't drinking at any other time during the day, would be enough to ensure they aren't going to collapse. When you establish a standard of something like "a canteen per hour", you risk a cadet ignoring their own body messages of "too much" in favor of what they assume to be wiser knowledge, and risk doing damage to themselves.

Just a thought.

Well written, Nathan.  One of the problems today (in my opinion), is that we are facing a new generation with medications much more advanced than our cadet days.  Many drugs prescribed today, especially those with anti-cholinergenic properties, will disrupt the body's ability to avoid over hydration.  Ecstacy is an extreme example, and while rare, presents a dangerous situation when field conditions are present.

The body has several mechanisms that keep you from over doing it.  Increased kidney pass-through rate, lack of thirst, then a desire NOT to drink any more water, and finally nausea if you continue is a general description of that chain.

Many of today's younger generation are on medications that can disrupt that process.  A few others may have medical conditions that can also cause problems.  This is why we have to ask what meds they are taking and what physical conditions exist that may endanger them during such stressful activities.

I think for the average, healthy person (high stress on the word HEALTHY), the urine color method is good.  It is an end-indicator of how much the body is processing water at that time.  If a person has completely clear fluid (i.e. if they tell you), is using the bathroom every 10 minutes or so, and continuing to drink excessive amounts of water, you need to be watching them closely, or intervene.   Forcing everyone to drink insane amounts of water isn't smart, and has been met with heavy scepticism recently by military medical experts.  I'm seeing a second level of guidance added - an "average" amount of water volume required for different situations.

In every bathroom here, urine charts are posted over every urinal and stall to remind people of the dangers in 130+ degree heat.  Everyone from the office workers to those outside are susceptable.  I can attest to several members working full shifts in the CAOC, so busy with the war tasks, that they didn't hydrate as they should have, and ended up at the hospital on thier way back to the living compound.  It will strike fast, and without warning in this temperature.

Again, most healthy people will know where their limits are, and know the physical indicators of where they need to be.  I was drinking insane amounts of water during our CAST field training - because we were in the field, working hard, in 95 degrees, in very dry climate.  The urine method worked well, but I was also healthy and not on any meds.

Bottom line, we need to be extra cautious when working with today's younger generation, for the reasons I mentioned above.  But also remember the older members need to be watched as well.  Be the wingman you are supposed to be, and everyone should be fine.  Don't get caught up in the mission-itis when the temps are black-flag.  Take it easy.  Would rather we got half our intended sorties with no injuries and happy trainees than to have a heat injury and everyone miserable.

Just my $0.02 thoughts from the Persian Gulf...

70 days and counting -  8)
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: Thunder on August 17, 2010, 06:38:07 PM
Quote from: vento on May 22, 2010, 08:13:57 PM
Quote from: PHall on May 22, 2010, 07:54:50 PM
Quote from: IceNine on May 22, 2010, 06:35:23 PM
Those charts are actually a really good wake up call.

They are posted above every urinal at Great Lakes.  Obviously there is some logistics involved with ground pounders.  My fix,  I almost never take my camel bak hose out of my mouth.  Passes the time and keeps me healthy.

You can over hydrate too. And it will kill you just as dead as being dehydrated will too.
Nature likes a balance, so does your body.

Indeed, water poisoning is serious. Amazing it happens to marathon runners and people from heat stress. I always thought they needed hydration the most...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Back in the day, we called it drowning
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: SarDragon on August 17, 2010, 07:10:39 PM
I think you meant that in a humourous light, but drowning is actually asphyxiation.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: HGjunkie on August 17, 2010, 08:11:48 PM
Same rules for hydration apply in cold weather, I remember having to drink a lot of water at my basic winter encampment. It's actually easier in my opinion to dehydrate in cold weather because you're not sweating like in the heat, so you think you don't need as much water, but you do.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: ol'fido on August 17, 2010, 11:09:19 PM
The unofficial motto of the 2010 Illinois Wing Summer Encampment: "Don't Pee Cheddar!" Thanks, Joe!
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: notaNCO forever on August 20, 2010, 12:58:32 AM
When I was at BMT the medic told me the pee charts posted everywhere were useless and even if your urine is clear you can still be dehydrated. Apparently it's important to sip water because if you chug it your body won't absorb it and it will just pass through you. As far as drinking to much water I've drank eleven canteens in a day and still survived.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: SarDragon on August 20, 2010, 03:10:26 AM
I gotta disagree with both of those ideas.

The body will absorb water at whatever rate needed and available. If you chug it, it goes through your system, as necessary, and the rest leaves as sweat and/or urine. Today, I drank 38 ounces of water, in 9.5 ounce increments, in about ten minutes, consuming each portion as fast as I could pour it in my mouth and refill the container. (There's an irrelevant story in there.)

I probably only peed out less than a single portion. My body needed water. It took what it needed, and got rid of the rest. This whole evolution took place in air conditioning, after some time outside in 97 degree heat.

Eleven canteens is 5.5 quarts. That is likely too much water for one day.Yes, you survived, but a cavalier attitude about water consumption could catch up with you when you least expect it. Hero to zero is too easy in this arena. That's why there are rules and recommendations on dehydration, and fluid and electrolyte replenishment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_poisoning
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluid_balance
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: 1LtNurseOfficer on August 20, 2010, 12:47:29 PM
The Mayo Clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/water/NU00283)

QuoteHow much water do you need?
Every day you lose water through your breath, perspiration, urine and bowel movements. For your body to function properly, you must replenish its water supply by consuming beverages and foods that contain water.

So how much water does the average, healthy adult living in a temperate climate need? In general, doctors recommend 8 or 9 cups. Here are the most common ways of calculating that amount:

-- Replacement approach. The average urine output for adults is about 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) a day. You lose close to an additional liter (about 4 cups) of water a day through breathing, sweating and bowel movements. Food usually accounts for 20 percent of your total fluid intake, so if you consume 2 liters of water or other beverages a day (a little more than 8 cups) along with your normal diet, you will typically replace your lost fluids.

-- Eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Another approach to water intake is the "8 x 8 rule" — drink eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day (about 1.9 liters). The rule could also be stated, "Drink eight 8-ounce glasses of fluid a day," as all fluids count toward the daily total. Although the approach really isn't supported by scientific evidence, many people use this easy-to-remember rule as a guideline for how much water and other fluids to drink.

-- Dietary recommendations. The Institute of Medicine advises that men consume roughly 3 liters (about 13 cups) of total beverages a day and women consume 2.2 liters (about 9 cups) of total beverages a day.

Even apart from the above approaches, if you drink enough fluid so that you rarely feel thirsty and produce 1.5 liters (6.3 cups) or more of colorless or slightly yellow urine a day, your fluid intake is probably adequate. If you're concerned about your fluid intake, check with your doctor or a registered dietitian. He or she can help you determine the amount of water that's best for you.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: blkhwk on August 21, 2010, 02:30:48 AM
Quote from: SarDragon on August 20, 2010, 03:10:26 AM

Eleven canteens is 5.5 quarts.....


  I don't know about that....a standard canteen is a quart. There also two-quart square shaped ones, that you can carry in a pouch like a purse, or attach to a ruck. The only half-quarts I have ever seen are that little-bitty aluminum boy scout ones. 
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: SarDragon on August 21, 2010, 08:36:03 AM
Oh, I thought a canteen held a pint. So 11 canteens is WAY too much.
Title: Re: Safety Pee Chart
Post by: a2capt on August 21, 2010, 08:57:40 AM
A British Pint..  maybe. ;-)