One of the problems I deal with managing schizoaffective disorder is moderate polydipsia. On many days I might drink more than 4-5L of fluid compulsively. This adds a great deal of edema to my body although I don’t seem to ever have severe electrolyte issues probably because I often eat a high sodium American diet.
I have tried tracking my fluid intake but I easily get “tracking fatigue” from so many entries each day so instead I decided to start tracking my urine output.
The method I am using now is to measure my weight before and after urinating when I am home. When I am away I try to estimate my output proportional to the time it takes me. A typical weight of urination usually falls in the range from 0.5 to 1.2 lbs and this can amount to up to 9-12lbs daily output. If I defecate and urinate at the same time I just enter a standard minimum offset of 0.5lbs since I don’t bother measuring separately.
I log each time I go to the bathroom into my Acal tracker app I made. The weight of urine is not much more than just plain water so I later convert this back to liters. My typical daily output is now 3 to 4L which is fairly normal for most males especially for hot summer days.
I find this method much less cumbersome and more effective than trying to log my fluid intake. I also suspect that my appetite seems more manageable. Psychologically I think I am trying to urinate less frequently and I often have the compulsive habit of taking in fluid after I urinate so by being more aware of this I tend to do it less.
Through a combination of calorie restriction, increased
exercise, increased fiber intake and now fluid intake management my weight and blood pressure in the morning have been decreasing. I am losing about 0.6 lb per week in weight and my systolic pressure has dropped from 130 range down to about 115 before taking my blood pressure pill.
I will publish some graphs when I have some more substantial data since I have only been doing this for a couple days but I was pleased with the nearly immediate effect on my blood pressure.
Yes although I have just started so I forget once in awhile and have to guesstimate sometimes.
Fortunately I bought a pretty nice inexpensive digital scale from Amazon that zeroes pretty quickly:
Not entirely sure if it’s accurate and precise to less than to 0.2 lbs but it’s much faster recording than our old one. I just read the two least significant digits and subtract and then record it in my app.
Here is some early data… I just started this process five days ago but you can see a sudden drop in the last three measurements of my systolic bp
(Also I think the one anomalous low BP point from about 20 days ago was from when I took my full Valium dose the night before… I don’t like taking too much benzos because of potential adverse long term cardiac problems with them as I get older)
This is the data of my fluid intake (oz) using my old method of recording whenever I drank.
It is probably underreported though since it was difficult to remember to enter it so many times a day. Even so it shows I was taking in at least 6lbs or 3L of fluid on average, but it was probably much higher because I got tired of entering it in especially at night.
I have to do some more tests though because I have to make sure the recent blood pressure drop is not just from a full nightime benzo dose. I don’t remember if I took a full pill or half pill the past couple days. I have to see if there is a significant difference with just my half dose.
If I get very ambitious I might also track metrics for stomach and neck girth to help gauge edema. Fortunately my ankles never swell but that may be because I do a large amount of walking as a family caregiver.
Actually comparing a pic from today with one three weeks ago I think I see a difference in my neck and face… right now I am about 203 lbs without clothes
Just an update… I fell off the wagon on this for awhile but am trying again. This time I am using an old version of KeepTrack for Android that I purchased years ago. It has an onscreen Marker counter widget that I just tap every time I go to the bathroom. I will see if this is as effective but so far it seems promising.
