Effect of Dehydration and High Hematocrit?

I did some research on High Hematocrit and while yes, there are several reasons it could be elevated I found one that seemed so simple. Lack of Hydration.

I ask, are you individuals with high Hematocrit drinking lots of water in the day, consistently every day? I think it’s a valid question to ask yourself and I am not talking about someone saying “yes I do”, but you know you don’t. My mother always says she drinks water, and then she stays with me for a week straight and she never drinks one ounce. She says it makes her throw up to even think of water (only drinks soda and sugar drinks).

My Hematocrit was slightly over 54% since it climbed starting TRT. I made no additional changes to my diet except I had realized that at some point I had completely stopped drinking my daily intake of water that I was accustom to when healthy. I don’t ever drink Soda’s. I just wasn’t drinking anything.

What happened? I got my blood results back today (doctor called me, my copy is in the mail) and he told me my Hematocrit went down to 49%, and I had only resumed my water intake for 1 week prior to that test. He asked me what did I do? Did I donate blood? I said no, I drank water.

I can only suggest, if you ware one of these people who has high Hematocrit, assess your water intake and force yourself to drink 64+ ounces a day and see what happens. I can tell it’s helping me in many more ways than just this one symptom. Sometimes the answers can be so simple and overlooked.

Thoughts?

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I’ve been on TRT for 15 months and hematocrit was always in the 46-47% range until one visit where I went in after a big weekend out, very tired and very, very dehydrated, and my results came back at 53%, they refused to give me my T shot, and made me go donate blood, which I never did. My next visit 8 weeks later, made sure to drink tons of water beforehand, back to 45%. Def makes a difference

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Man, that’s just beautiful music to my ears (and eyes)! I really feel like I have stumbled onto something here and even my doctor was shocked how fast it changed several of my numbers into a healthy range. Can’t wait to see what it looks like in 4 weeks when I do my next blood test. This was the one thing stopping him from upping my dose. Thanks to this lower number I got a bump today for my Test Dosage.

Thanks for responding @swoops39.

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This makes no sense. They did not give you your T shot and you waited 8 weeks? What did you do just go cold turkey with no T for 8 weeks?

Sorry, I’ll elaborate a little more. They wouldn’t give me my shot that day (I do home injection but when I go in for lab work they offer a shot there, which I usually accept). My next visit wasn’t for 8 weeks, but no, I didn’t skip my home injections during that time, I did them each week.

My point of that story was to corroborate the OP’s thoughts on hydration levels affecting hematocrit, since I had experienced the same thing.

Interesting. My HCT started at 49 and has been as high as 51. I’ve been much better about drinking water the last 3 months and have an appt next month for bloods… that would be fantastic if I saw something like 45. I’m doing bare minimum of 1 gallon a day right now. Thanks for posting this.

Yup I made a comment to that effect when someone had weird hct kevels. I found the same through my research. Our blood is having a high percentage of water so it makes sense.

I’ll be sure to hydrate before blood test. Thanks.

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