How to Hydrate when You Burn Yourself

The body is made up almost entirely of water, and whenever we damage ourselves in some way or another, this is typically the first thing to get off balance. A good example of this is whenever we experience a burn, either directly to the skin because of something that we touch or perhaps because of a sunburn. As a matter of fact, dehydration is one of the biggest problems whenever it comes to a larger burn area and you would want to make sure that you are treating it as quickly as possible in order to help along the healing process.

Most people will tell you that you need to have some type of sports drink, because it helps put electrolytes back in your body. Although electrolytes certainly are important, it is more important for you to avoid losing the ones that you have instead of adding them back because they are being lost. That is why you would want to drink regular water in large quantities, but make sure that you are taking some sea salt with the water in order to maintain it in your system for a long enough time. If you do not take the salt, the water will typically flush through your body and take many of the nutrients that your body contains along with it.

As a matter of fact, force-feeding yourself extremely large quantities of water without any salt can kill you by removing all of the electrolytes from your body. That is how important it is for you to make sure that you are having some salt, either in your diet or by putting a pinch under your tongue for every cup that you drink. This certainly is not something that you would want to fool with, especially whenever your body is already in a weakened condition because of the burn.

Another thing that you can do for sunburn or mild skin burns is to apply water directly to the area. This is not necessarily going to help hydrate you, as not much of the water is going to be absorbed through the skin. What it will do, however, is to help to cool the area and to assist in the development of new skin cells. Make sure that you're using something sterile when applying it to the area, as you would not want to introduce bacteria that can cause further problems.