Is it advisable for survivors to drink own urine?

golok

golok

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Oct 20, 2000
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I have come across stories about shipwrecked survivors drinking their own urine as a substitute for water.

One person actually said urine is sterilised, therefore it is quite "safe". Then there are those who drink it for religious reasons.

However, the focus here is on survival. What do the real experts have to say about drinking one's own urine?

I mean medically and scientifically, does it do any harm, or is it relatively safe except slightly unpleasant because it is not an acceptable norm?
 
One of my soldiers as his bar trick to get out of a round of drinks used to pass around a pint mug and have everyione fill it. He would give it a minute or two to let it cool and then take it down in one :barf: :(

It should be sterile unless someone has a weeping wound down under :eek:

As I understand it your own urine is not very good for you, but someone elses is less bad. If the donors are well hydrated then the concentration of waste products, salts and stuff is mild and some hydration can be gained. Too many waste products and you are adding to your dehydration problems as more water is needed than gained to flush the toxins out.

I've heard that some people believe a glass every week or so is good for one. I'm no believer though.

I'd be interested too what the authoritative medical case is.
 
While I'm no expert in this field, I have learned from a reliable source that drinking urine can in fact cause a temporary distortion in skin pigmentation.

There is at least one documented case of a Sgt. turning "green" from drinking urine that was placed in his military issue canteen. Medical reports confirm that the Sgt's complexion returned to normal within a few days.

;)
 
I didn't read this in the New England Journal of Medicine, but my opinion is that drinking my own(or anyone else's) urine could more than likely make me puke.
 
All around poor idea. While it is sterile (usually) in the bladder, exposure to the exterior of the body allows oportunistic pathogens to invade it. As urine is the perfect breeding zone, you can get some truly nasty bacteria and germs that you don't want. Along with that, comes the idea that it is the vehicle to carry WASTE products away from the body. Your kidneys have already gotten rid of this crap once, don't make them do it again. From the amount of wasted water it took to get rid of the body contaminants the first time, you will use and lose even more with a second go round.
Aside from that, it may make you puke, and then you lose even more moisture.
recondoc
 
Originally posted by GREENJACKET
One of my soldiers as his bar trick to get out of a round of drinks used to pass around a pint mug and have everyione fill it. He would give it a minute or two to let it cool and then take it down in one
Click to expand...

Oh! He use to let it COOL down. What a wimp.
 
Originally posted by recondoc1
All around poor idea. While it is sterile (usually) in the bladder, exposure to the exterior of the body allows oportunistic pathogens to invade it. As urine is the perfect breeding zone, you can get some truly nasty bacteria and germs that you don't want. Along with that, comes the idea that it is the vehicle to carry WASTE products away from the body. Your kidneys have already gotten rid of this crap once, don't make them do it again. From the amount of wasted water it took to get rid of the body contaminants the first time, you will use and lose even more with a second go round.
Aside from that, it may make you puke, and then you lose even more moisture.
recondoc
Click to expand...

In a truly survivalist environment where food is seldom a reality, the body will release more toxins through the skin during the involuntary fasting (resulting in sores). However, I'm not sure if this type of toxin transport is effective if the body is low on hydrates. I know the individual would have trouble sweating during a situation like this, but I'm not sure if all dermal toxin transports during fasting occur during the waste sweating procedure; they may occur outside of sweating. Any thoughts on this?
 
When I was in S. E. Asia many years ago we were told to be prepared to drink our own urine as a last
ditch survival water source. At frist I thought we had a mad man for an instructor but it was in the official
hand book we had. My good luck that I never had to find out, but I suppose that if the difference between
life and death all things are possible. YUCK!!!!
 
One of my fraternity brothers used to urinate into empty beer bottles that had twist-off tops, reclose them and put them in his refrigerator. The cooling urine and gas in the bottle made for a good seal that felt like the real original seal on an unopened bottle. He did this so only he would know which bottles had beer and which had urine, so no one would try to drink his beer. Finding a beer in college can be considered a survival situation. We mixed up all the bottles on him to get him to stop this practice.:p
 
Water can be extracted from the urine through evaporation (same as with salt water). Heat the urine (by fire, sun etc.) and the pure water will evaporate off and can be captured and recondensed. Of course you would need to have/find the matierials to built an apparatus to do this.

'Fresh' urine is sterile. In fact some of the toxins it contains make nice cleaning agents (ammonia I believe) and can be used for washing. You just have to rinse well after because as recondoc said the urine will grow bacteria very fast. Remember that next time you run out of soap :)
 
komondor
It probably wasn't the temperature; more like he didn't want too much head :) on his pint being a southerner. (Northerners like more head and even have pint jars with higher rims to carry the froth. :( )

Being a bitter/real ale drinker (you know the warm dark stuff we drink over here); I thought lager (Miller/Bud Lite??) was what the publican made by recyling real ale waste (by adding fiz, bottling and chilling :D :D ) Filtered beer has the potato chips and peanut bits taken out of it. Even I have had to drink the stuff being in a real survival situation having landed in the States with no warm beer.;)

Come on doc's out there, we want to know how tough on our kidneys urine drinking is.


World Conspiacy theory 22 goes something like this:

Lepricorns take bog water and squeeze it to produce alcohol. The waste product is brewed to produce Guinness, which the Irish drink. The waste products from this is exported and brewed again to produce bitter and drunk by the British. This waste is then brewed again to produce lager and drunk by the Germans. In due course this is then recyled by the French to produce Champagne. Scotch Whisky is 80% proof but with some bog water left in. Russians started with pure vodka and advanced to anti freeze. All this is exported around the world. The final essence is recycled and is the secret ingredience in Coka Cola/Pepsi. Which of course is the worlds favourite drink. (Sorry couldn't think up any more).
 
Good grief! I think this thread should get an award for being

1. The most disgusting
2. The most civilized

at the same time. I'm still not sure how this would work.

Kind of reminds me of the old joke (which I'm going to tell anyway) of the 2 guys stranded in a lifeboat in the ocean. A lamp floats up, they rub it, and a Genie appears to give them one wish (I don't know why it's only one wish).

So the quicker of the two says, "I wish this ocean was an ocean of beer!" Presto, the ocean is now beer instead of salt water.

His companion promptly smacks him and says, "Way to go, now where do we pee?"
 
Is one of the modes of transmission of Hepatitis A through urine?

Personally, I'd rather drink my own. But if I had to, I'd probably have to have a container of some sort, so hopefully, I'd have the materials to make a still.

gm
 
One of my surgeon friends was a medical missionary in remote parts of Africa and a combat veteran. He said that fresh male urine may be used for irrigating wounds when no sterile water/solution is available. However, he didn't think that drinking it without distilling is a good idea.
 
To all of those expressing disgust at drinking their urine and wondering whether they could do it:

Lest we forget, most of the folks here have tasted trace amounts of other people's urine. Who among us has never gone down on their beloved?

That said, drinking pee does sound a bit gross to me. I'm not going to go out of my way to do it unnecessarily. But, just like the way that love and lust overcome this revulsion, it would surely seem like a negligible concern in a survival situation.

I'd also like to hear authoritative information about pros/cons of drinking urine in survival situations.
 
komondor,

i thought that dermal toxin transport was through sweating. Are you saying that there is another form of toxin transport through the skin? maybe i didn't get the gist of your thread correctly, but i would think that all forms of waste transport are reduced when the body realizes that there is a limited supply of food/water coming into the body. In that case, wouldn't it be bad to recycle urine on the third or fourth round? by that time, you're prbably building up toxicity and increasing the amount of ammonia in your body drastically. you're probably dehydrated and not sweating as much, so there's even more buildup in your body there. I guess for the first round or two, it might be ok to get you through temporarily, but you're looking at a big problem within a few days. i wouldn't be surprised if the toxicity eventually weakened the person sooner.

toast
 
Hmm... odd question. I guess if I was stranded with no other water source and I was going to die, I'd probably drink my own urine. My only problem aiming at the hole without splashing on the rim :)
 
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