The medical term for water intoxication is hyponatremia. It is a condition where water and sodium is lost from the body in huge amounts. This is common to the summer months where a person loses water through perspiration.

What are the symptoms?

Some of the symptoms of hyponatremia are weakness, dizziness, nausea, muscle cramps, seizures, loss of consciousness and slurring in speech.

How to administer first aid for a person?

The first thing you need to differentiate between dehydration and hyponatremia. The symptoms of both are similar, however on talking to the patient of the witnesses you will be able to pin point the right disorder so that you can administer the right medication.

The one thing that you can do for the person is to loosen all clothing. Remove the person’s shoes and socks, loosen the belt and tie and unbutton the shirt. Keep the person in a comfortable position. The next attempt should be to reduce the person’s body temperature. This can be done by rubbing ice cubes on the soles of the person’s feet and on the palms of his hands. Also apply a towel dipped in ice water on the persons forehead and run ice cubes through the head. The ice will automatically lower the body temperature in minutes.

If the person is conscious, help him to a drink of water followed by an orange juice and then a few cubes of crushed ice must be placed in the person’s mouth. The person will begin to feel relief but must not be moved form the position that he is lying down in to avoid fainting as the person will experience dizziness.

Call the emergency services even if the person begins to feel better. Huge amounts of loss of sodium from the body can be detrimental and only a doctor will be able to assist the patient to normalize the sodium and water levels in the body.