Addicted to water: Young mother whose obsession started when she was just two years old drinks up to 44 pints a day

Drinking plenty of water would usually be seen as a healthy habit – and many of us could probably do with upping our daily intake.
But for one young mother it is an addiction which drives her to down a staggering 44 pints a day.
Sasha Kennedy, 26, carries large bottles of water with her wherever she goes and rarely sleeps for more than an hour a night without waking for a drink.
She is forced to go to the toilet up to 40 times every day and has even quit jobs over the lack of quality water in her workplaces, she says. Yesterday, Miss Kennedy, from Southend-on-Sea, Essex, revealed she consumes 5.5 gallons of water over 24 hours.

You drink how much? Sasha Kennedy with a selection of bottles of her favourite tipple

Though her daily water intake far exceeds the maximum 3.5 pints recommended by experts, she says she has been checked by doctors and has no health problems as a result.

 

AN UNCOMMON CLINICAL DISORDER

Psychogenic polydipsia is an uncommon clinical disorder characterized by excessive water-drinking in the absence of a physiologic stimulus to drink.
It is commonly, although not always, encountered in patients with psychiatric disorders.
Complications can include incontinence as well as renal and congestive heart failure. Patients can also suffer from potentially fatal water intoxication when the balance of electrolytes in the brain is disrupted.
The diagnosis is one of exclusion. Management includes fluid restriction along with behavioural therapy and certain drugs.

Miss Kennedy said: ‘If I feel my mouth start to get dry I have to get my next fix of water – it’s all I can focus on. People never really think anyone can drink that much until they get to know me – then they just cannot believe their eyes.
‘I feel thirsty pretty much all the time and always have to be sipping water – it’s an addictive habit.
‘The most sleep I’ve ever had is about one hour and 15 minutes, because I am getting up to drink or nip to the loo.’
Miss Kennedy, who is a full-time mother to Reggie, two, and Fraser, one, developed her habit when she was just two years old. She began nagging her parents for more water, which prompted them to take her to the doctors.
But medical experts confirmed there was nothing wrong with her.
By the age of six she drank so much water that her mother started leaving a jug of water by her bed each night.

Glass half full: The young mother-of-two drinks 25 litres of water a day, the equivalent of 100 glasses

Drinking up: The mother-of-two - who claims she has no health problems - even wakes up several times a night to sip water and go to the toilet

She started taking a bottle of water to school each day and would stay close to the water fountain at break time while the other children went out to play. By 13 she was already drinking up to 26 pints each day.
‘By that stage my parents had got rid of the jug by my bed at night and replaced it with a five-litre (nine pint) plastic container,’ she said.
‘When I was 16 and left school I started work in a shoe shop stockroom and everyone began to notice how much I drank. They ended up moving the water cooler next to my desk.’
Miss Kennedy quit her next job, at a carpet firm in Dartford, Kent, because the quality of their tap water was not good enough.
By her early 20s she was downing 35 pints a day and her addiction peaked when she began working from home for a telecoms company in 2007. She now drinks between 31 and 44 pints each day.
Experts yesterday said Miss Kennedy’s condition was rare, with the average adult drinking little more than 200ml of water per day. Dr Emma Derbyshire, a nutrition consultant, said: ‘Over-hydrating with any fluid is possible and in extreme cases it can be dangerous, but this is very rare.’