If you’re anything like me, you retain water due to anything. You blow your nose.. Water retention. You drink water.. Water retention. You eat soup.. Water retention. You breathe air.. Water retention. 

Water retention seems to be a common problem for women with Dysautonomia, Autonomic Nervous System problems, Autoimmune Diseases, ect. I’m not sure why or how, but literally anything at any given moment can cause me to puff up faster than a puffer fish in the blink of an eye. 

I will literally go from 140lbs to 165lbs of water in a day. My body will be so sore from the rapid stretching and shrinking and all the inflammation that it’ll hurt to even get a hug. It’s crazy, super annoying and painful, so I’ve tried a few things that have given me some puffiness relief. 

1. Drinking A LOT of water. I know this sounds super contradictory to the problem at hand, but drinking water constantly helps me not retain as much(probably due to the frequent bathroom trips lol). 
2. Lowering salt intake.  If you have Dysautonomia.. This is tricky. Because they’ll tell you to add salt to your diet in order to try and prevent pass out episodes and what not, but by not having as much sodium in your diet, you’re not retaining as much water. Still haven’t mastered that one quite yet, but I’m sure there is a sweet spot somewhere! 
3. Watermelon. Watermelon. Watermelon! It’s like drinking delicious fruity water with seeds lol. Same concept as more water intake essentially. 
4. Exercise. This one has a sweet spot to it as well. You wanna do a lot of cardiovascular exercise.. But if you have dysautonomia, you’ll have to monitor your heart rate and keep a watch on setting yourself up for a blackout. If you don’t have this problem then doing some extra walking/jogging/stair climbing is a really good help. 
5. Eating like a rabbit. I’m talking that incredibly bland, no seasoning type diet. Mushy veggies, mushy potatoes, mush mush mush. Literally the worst diet ever, but that’s the only way my stomach doesn’t hate me and my body doesn’t puff up.  In short,  there really isn’t a magic key that turns off our weird autonomic nervous system, but all these things plus a good water pill can help. 

Hang in there, Warriors. We’ll get some answers eventually!  #TeamPuffy lol