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How Much Water Should You Drink to Flush Your System for a Drug Test?

Water helps in keeping our body hydrated and free from all the toxins that can possibly enter our bodies. There’s no doubt in asserting that water has some miraculous benefits to our body. From cleansing the skin to helping in the excretion process, water is beneficial for the human body in more than one way. But, there’s a common belief among the people that drinking plenty of water can flush out THC and metabolites from the system for a drug test. Is this true?


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water to drink to flush for a drug test

Does Water Help Pass a Drug Test?

You must have heard that drinking a lot of water before a drug test can let you pass it without any hassle. Passing a drug test is all about decreasing the concentration of THC metabolite from your urine. It is true that drinking a lot of fluids increases the urine output and decreases the level of THC in your system, but significantly dilutes your urine as well.

There is a major risk behind following this practice as the lab will find your sample diluted and eventually reject it making you take the test again. So, it is not considered as the most reliable option to pass the drug test, but still, you can give it a try if you know the right level of hydration.

How Much Water Should You Drink to Flush Your System?

Generally, people recommend that keeping the body hydrated 3 hours before the test is ideal to pass the test. Starting it 6 hours before the test and urinating a few times before giving the samples is even more effective and has more probabilities of clearing the test. It is essential to urinate at least 3 times before the test to make sure that your urine does not look excessively diluted. Drinking water at a rate between 0.5 liters and 1 liter every hour is the recommended rate of hydration.

Your body size also plays an important role in determining the exact hydration rate required to pass the test. Your kidney cannot excrete more than 1 liter in an hour, so drinking more than this will only accumulate water in your system.

How to Prevent Your Urine Sample from Getting Rejected?

As mentioned earlier, hyperhydration will make your urine sample diluted that can get rejected during the test. There are things you can do to avoid such a situation when you are diluting your urine to pass the test:

Vitamin B12 for Visual Appearance

The first that the lab technician will check after receiving the sample is the visual appearance of your urine sample. A clear urine sample will trigger the suspicion of urine dilution. It is important to give your urine a natural color. The issue can be resolved by vitamin B12. Take around 300 mg of vitamin B12 3 hours before the test to restore the yellow color of the sample.

Specific Gravity and Electrolyte Solution

Specific gravity test is conducted to ascertain the over dilution of the urine sample. In case the lab technician is still suspicious about your sample even after adding vitamin B12, he will go for this test. It basically identifies the concentration of solutes in the urine, so even a single molecule dissolved in the urine will mount up the specific gravity. Your urine has electrolytes that contribute to specific gravity. Instead of drinking normal water you can replace it with an electrolyte solution. This way your kidney will excrete the excess fluid keeping the specific gravity of urine at normal range.

Urine Creatinine

It is a muscle metabolism by-product excreted through your urine. Urine creatinine can also be used to measure the urine dilution by the drug testing laboratories. The average cutoff of creatinine level set by testing labs is 20 mg/dL. If you fall below this, your sample will be rejected. The hyperhydration can make your creatinine levels drop. To avoid such issues, you can buy creatinine test strips for yourself, to test your urine for the creatinine levels before giving the samples to the lab. But what you will do if your creatinine is found lower than the set range? Below are some creatine supplements you can take to pass the drug test:

Creatine Monohydrate

It is a precursor to creatinine and it is easily available as a dietary supplement. Generally, people take this to increase their urine creatinine levels before the drug test. 95% of creatine is found in the form of creatine monohydrate. So taking this supplement is an effective way of preventing sample rejection.

Creatine Ethyl Ester

It is quite similar to monohydrate but possesses some extra ester group. Creatine ethyl ester helps in converting creatine directly in the blood leaving no chance of suspicion. A single 10g dose of creatine ethyl ester can instantly increase the serum and creatinine levels in your urine. Creatine monohydrate might fail sometimes, but ethyl ester will never disappoint you. It has been proven that creatine ethyl ester is more reliable than monohydrate as it directly makes the changes in your blood than the urine.

Drinking lots of water cannot excrete the THC metabolites from your system completely to pass the test. Additionally, it also has the risk of urine dilution that can compel the lab to reject your sample and prep you for a re-test. Though drinking lots of water can excrete the THC from your system to some extent, there is no scientific proof that it helps pass a drug test. Still, you can use this method if you know how to close all the loopholes.

The above mentioned were some of the ways in which you can prevent your diluted urine sample from getting rejected. Follow the ideal hydration rate and make sure your urine sample doesn’t get rejected.