Hello I have a question. If you were stranded on a boat in the middle of the ocean with no fresh water around except for a few quarts in the bottom of the boat that was contaminated with dirt, urine, maybe a little feces could you give yourself an enema with it to rehydrate without becoming ill? Obviously drinking it would make you sick but would putting the water in your rectum work without making you ill?

Thank you.

Yes and you could .
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I'm curious. How is giving yourself an enema, going to rehydrate you? It will do the opposite.

The theory is that you would absorb the water through your colon.

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Originally Posted by odinn7

The theory is that you would absorb the water through your colon.

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But you'd also crap it right back out again.

Diarrhea is one of the main causes of dehydration. An enema basically induces you to crap out everything in your colon, including any fluids. I've had an enema (sorry for the tmi) and frankly, the water isn't in your colon long enough to be absorbed. It's ten minutes and then you're on the porcelain God wishing you'd never ever done it.

Frankly, from the little I know about this, which I admit isn't a lot, I'd think that an enema would make you even more dehydrated.

I was reading about it and it seems that nobody knows the true answer. On one hand, I suppose if you hold it in, you can probably get some water out of it where if you drank that water, it could induce vomiting. I think it is the lesser of the evils plan.

But how about this... how many survival kits have a way to stick water up your butt safely? I think I would rather take my chances at collecting rain water and such than taking a chance on ripping myself open or giving myself some nasty disease.

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Originally Posted by odinn7

I was reading about it and it seems that nobody knows the true answer. On one hand, I suppose if you hold it in, you can probably get some water out of it where if you drank that water, it could induce vomiting. I think it is the lesser of the evils plan.

But how about this....how many survival kits have a way to stick water up your butt safely? I think I would rather take my chances at collecting rain water and such than taking a chance on ripping myself open or giving myself some nasty disease.

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Good point. Unless you have a hose in your boat, good luck getting the feces/urine/dirt water up your a$$.

Drinking your own urine would probably be a better way to go.

You can get just as sick absorbing bacteria in your rectum as in your stomach.
Drinking urine makes sense, but this boat scenario is not a good hypothetical. People on a lifeboat are going to collect fresh water and drink it, and pee and defecate over the side, not mix it all in the bottom and then produce an enema bag out of all this.

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Originally Posted by joypulv

You can get just as sick absorbing bacteria in your rectum as in your stomach.
Drinking urine makes sense, but this boat scenario is not a good hypothetical. People on a lifeboat are going to collect fresh water and drink it, and pee and defecate over the side, not mix it all in the bottom and then produce an enema bag out of all this.

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Good point Joy. That and the fact that even if they did defecate and urinate in the boat, there would still be no way to give an enema, unless you had a rubber tube, which isn't likely.

Much better to collect rain water, or drink your urine.

Well the reason I asked this is because it was recently a real life scenario on a survival show. I'm not for certain the water was contaminated with feces and such but it was dirty water that had been exposed to the environment for some time and was determined to be unsuitable for drinking. They used a rubber line from the broken outboard motor as a tube to insert the water into the rectum. This is why I wanted to know if you would not become ill as it could be a conceivable scenario in a life/death situation. Bottom line would you get sick or not putting it in your rectum if you would get sick from drinking it? Also he decided he needed the dirty water enema as there was no fresh drinking water available and he was very dehydrated and on the verge of suffering a heat stroke.

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Originally Posted by gm52594

Well the reason I asked this is because it was recently a real life scenario on a survival show. I'm not for certain the water was contaminated with feces and such but it was dirty water that had been exposed to the environment for some time and was determined to be unsuitable for drinking. They used a rubber line from the broken outboard motor as a tube to insert the water into the rectum. This is why I wanted to know if you would not become ill as it could be a conceivable scenario in a life/death situation. Bottom line would you get sick or not putting it in your rectum if you would get sick from drinking it? Also he decided he needed the dirty water enema as there was no fresh drinking water available and he was very dehydrated and on the verge of suffering a heat stroke.

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If the water was contaminated, then yes, he'd get sick. It doesn't matter which hole it goes into, if it's contaminated and you put it in your body, it will make you sick.

I still question how an enema would hydrate you, since an enema is used to induce your bowels to move, and moving your bowels with an enema takes the solid and liquid matter out of your body, leaving you more dehydrated, not less.

As for the heat stroke, an enema wouldn't help with that. If he was in a boat, he was surrounded by water, simply dousing himself with the cold water (and the water would be cold) would help with the heat stroke.

He'd still be better off drinking his own urine, or collecting rain water. An enema would not have hydrated him.

I agree with the perspective that it could cause diareah and be more dehydrating. It would be very hard to hold water in and it would not rehydrate you. You'd be introducing the bacteria internally into your body, so you'd probably get sick. It would make more sense to find a way to distill the salt water, capture rain water or drink your urine.

The problem is that I believe this all came about from Bear Grylls who does a "survival" show. What I have seen about him though, tells me that I wouldn't follow his advice too closely. I have seen reports that they film the show and stay in hotels over night rather than brave the wilderness as they lead you to believe. It seems that it is more of a sensational show rather than truly based in reality.

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Originally Posted by gm52594

Well the reason I asked this is because it was recently a real life scenario on a survival show. I'm not for certain the water was contaminated with feces and such but it was dirty water that had been exposed to the environment for some time and was determined to be unsuitable for drinking. They used a rubber line from the broken outboard motor as a tube to insert the water into the rectum. This is why I wanted to know if you would not become ill as it could be a conceivable scenario in a life/death situation. Bottom line would you get sick or not putting it in your rectum if you would get sick from drinking it? Also he decided he needed the dirty water enema as there was no fresh drinking water available and he was very dehydrated and on the verge of suffering a heat stroke.

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Okay, I see the hose but how did they solve the problem of gravity. Or, what force did they use to push the contaminated water up the rectum, but then again, maybe I don't want to know.