"Our NHS staff / Water intoxication"

Just a few words of thanks to NHS staff and a warning to others regarding too  much water consumption, otherwise known as water intoxication  / water poisoning.

Recently my son was admitted to the GRI A&E dept with symptoms of pains in his head, vomiting and basically total confusion.

To cut a long story short, my son who is a regular gym user had attended a newly opened local gym for the first time. He stayed longer than he normally would to try out most of the equipment (Around 2 hours) Each time he was moving from one piece of equipment to another he was consuming water (He had a 1 litre bottle which he refilled from the gyms water filter tap) In total he consumed approx 5 litres of water in a 2 hour period.

Now 5 litres may sound like a excessive amount to consume but it is easily done especially if like myself and all others I have since spoken to you think you are helping your body the more water we consume during exercise.

The result of my son consuming so much water over a short space time caused his brain to swell up and left him in a potentially life threating situation.

With regards to all the NHS staff from the porters to the nurses and doctors I cannot praise them highly enough for the professionalism and dedication shown during my sons care.

These staff work in highly pressurised environments and have to make important decisions with patients lives on a daily basis whilst sometimes understaffed and underequipped.

On occasion the NHS comes in for heavy criticism and sometimes rightly so but without this organization and all these dedicated staff then we would all be living in a much scarier and uncertain environment.

I think most of us all take our NHS for granted and assume it will always be there but its not until we really need it that you realise how important this service is and how much we need to protect it.

On a final note I would like to thank all the staff from A&E Dept and ward 50 at the GRI

Without these people and many others like them we would ALL be very vulnerable during our time of need.