Getting back to the parts per million/hydration theme. I am an off the street feeder hire and many many moons ago, I had a job for another tractor trailer company. The office for the company doctor that they had used for D.O.T. physicals did not issue d.o.t cards on the spot but faxed them to the company. One of the fax machines in the transaction must have been garbage because they could not get a good copy into my possession, after multiple attempts.
The company decided that the card I had ended up with was "satisfactory" . I eventually , quietly disagreed. The doctor's office was 5 states over from where I was so going back there to get a good copy was not viable. So I decided to go get my own done, minus the drug test since that was not required for the card. Cost about 40 dollars at the time.
So after working a long week of over the road trucking, I parked my truck and to stretch my legs I walked about the 5 miles to the place where I would have my D.O.T. physical. It was a hot humid day and I did have water and I was drinking it , but more was going out of my pores than going into me. So I arrived at the doctor's office and I had to piss into a cup and I gave the darkest most yellow sample that they probably ever saw. They test the contents for diabetes and as I found out, for protein. As it turns out, a high level of protein in the urine can be an indication of kidney damage and other things. If that level is too high, i.e if it exceeds a certain amount of parts per million, you ain't getting your card. Vision, weighing and blood pressure and hearing tests were done by a nurse or physician's aide.
So while waiting a little excessively in the examination room for the rest of the exam which had to be performed by the doctor, the doctor opened the door and peered in and looked at me rather oddly and I commented sheepishly "what's wrong?" She half jokingly and half seriously said "You should be dead, but apparently you are not and you look healthy.. My protein parts per million was off the charts. She asked if I drank water before I got there and I told her that I did but that I walked 5 miles to get there. "In this heat??, ahh that might be it" she said.
She told me that I need to drink a lot of water before they administer the urine test for protein again. So I sat there for a half an hour drinking water and gave a less colorful sample the second time. And my protein numbers were good.
So what did we learn from this story? : same protein amount in both samples, but more water the second time around to create larger denominator of that number: parts/million.. So , to the original poster, plenty of water and don't do what I did and go exercise yourself to death or expose yourself to a hot and humid day on the day of your piss test like I did
