From experience I have to agree with this article. Mentally ill people are really the only folks I am aware of that have this problem. The meds they take dry their mouth soooo much that they think they are thirsty, in reality they have a dry mouth. That appears to be what can start the problem.

They start drinking water, then more water. Then they lose salt but they continue drinking more and more water. I'm not talking a glass every hour, I'm talking a gallon every hour at a minimum. I had one patient, Donny, that would get a gallon jug and down it. Fifteen minutes later another gallon jug and he'd down it. He did this all day long.

In my career I've taken care of two patients with water intoxication syndrome, one died (Donny) and the other we were able to maintain by giving her 1/4 cup of salt twice daily in tomato juice. When the doc first wrote the order I looked at him like he was an idiot, how the heck is someone supposed to get 1/4 cup of salt down twice daily. He laughed and suggested I just watch. It was in LIQUID, these folks act as though they are addicted to fluids. He suggested I try it, he was positive my patient would drink it. I didn't believe him and I wasn't about to force a patient to drink juice with 1/4 cup of SALT. Yick!

Can you imagine? A half cup of salt daily? Yikes! The doc was right, she sucked it down. Commented that she really liked it too. For a treat we'd let her have it three times a day sometimes. It took everything I had not to gag when she drank it but she really liked it.

Sometimes with mentally ill people you can't always protect them from themselves. You can lock them in a room with no water (as in this case) for the rest of their lives why they scream because they are thirsty, or you can work around a few behaviors. Giving huge amounts of salt permitted her to walk around freely during the day and live her life as best she could.

Point being, water intoxication syndrome is very very rare. I could only find one doc that had ever cared for these types of patients and he is the one that suggested the salt. Other docs had heard of it but they had never seen it. It literally takes many many gallons a day before there is a problem. It also doesn't happen overnight, it happens over weeks and months and when electrolytes are depleted THEN it is a serious problem.

For those of us that crave water we aren't even coming close to water intoxication syndrome.