Excellent, I’m good in both cases. Haven’t been faint-headed since high school or so.
Oh, and my husband’s doctor started him on a reduced sodium, weight-reduction diet first, before adding antihypertensives. He’s doing great now with that combination.
I drive my cardiologist nuts - I rarely eat convenience foods, my allergies generally prevent me from using most convenience crap [palm oils, ‘natural flavors’ frequently have mushroom powder - plus they tend to taste like crap] and I can’t do diuretics [they tend to trigger flares in my psudogout] so he can’t make me change my diabetic nutritionist mandated diet, nor give me diuretics, and the joint problems seriously restrict the exercises I can do since I do not have access to a swimming pool nor will Tri-Care authorize more than 18 PT sessions per year nor do I really have access for transport to go the 30 miles to get to the Navy base so I could use the pool there for 50 cents per day/swim session.
I really need a clone body [or to be popped into a pod] sigh
That sounds like a pretty good rule of thumb. In fact, and as an example, I would have said that, symptoms or not, if your BP is less than 80/50, it’s probably too low. Well, note that the MAP for an individual with a BP of 80/50 is exactly 60. So it all seems consistent.
As an aside, a formula for the MAP which is pretty accurate and relatively easy to use is:
MAP = 1/3 of (systolic + 2 X diastolic)
or equivalently,
MAP = 1/3 systolic + 2/3 diastolic
Well done!!
My sister used to work for Phizer so the whole family got viagra tee shirts and the viagra stress balls.
Ahem.
I have been warned multiple times by my doctor that my sodium level was dangerously low (as in, get drinking Gatorade right now and go to the hospital immediately if you feel bad or peculiar in any way!). This has in fact been triggered by the fact that I drink a lot of fluids, and I don’t use air conditioning, so if the weather is hot, I perspire a great deal. The treatment, however, has in fact been to consume more salt. For me, it has been easiest to achieve this via salt tablets.
It took me a long time to realize that I didn’t have some bizarre kind of kidney damage, and that this was triggered by a combination of drinking a lot of fluids, ambient heat, and a diet not particularly high in salt. But it is definitely possible, at least for some of us, to not eat enough salt.
Update: the Institute of Medicine recently analyzed actual outcomes data (not some silly computer simulation) and found no evidence to support the notion that dropping sodium intake below 2,300 mg/day was beneficial.
Duly noted that this is a zombie, and fair warning that this post is only tangentially related. End disclaimer.
One interesting fact I learned from that book about the history of salt - I forget the title - Salt, A History, perhaps? - - is that modern people are actually consuming record low amounts of salt compared to most of human history. This is thanks to the invention of refrigeration and canning, which means we are no longer dependent on preserving food through salting, which was just about the only option for most of that time.
Carry on.
Dunno how I missed this one last time around, so…howdy, zombie Oy!
Or you’re consuming the right amount of sodium while you’re consuming excess fluids. Tomato, tomahto, I suppose.
I’d be quicker to recommend reducing fluid intake to a normal level, rather than raising the sodium intake. Not 'cause I’m a askeered of sodium (I’m not) but because you’re making your kidneys work extra hard to process all that excess fluid you’re drinking, to no benefit. But, of course, you should listen to your doctor, not some random pixels on the internet. For all you know, I’m an exceptionally literate golden retriever. Woof. 
I take all those reports with a grain of salt. Sorry couldn’t resist.
nm (for now)
But, if someone is consuming excess fluids, everything else being equal, they will pee out the excess water and wind up with a normal sodium concentration. Only if they’re taking in 10 or 12 liters per day of water, or more, can someone “dilute down” their blood sodium level (a bit more on this below).
2. By and large, if someone is unable to pee out excess water, and thus winds up with a low blood sodium level (hyponatremia), it is virtually diagnostic of there being too much ADH (with ADH being the hormone that regulates body water, for those not familiar with it).
Phrasing it slightly differently:
Hyponatremia indicates too much water. Too much water indicates high levels of ADH. So, when I encounter a patient with hyponatremia, a key part of my job is to determine why their ADH levels are high.
The body may produce high levels of ADH for many reasons including (but definitely not limited to):
Rarely, blood sodium (salt) levels can be low even in the absence of too much ADH. The two prototypes for this are 1. ingesting HUGE quantities (over 10 L per day) of water, and 2. protein malnutrition (each of these for complicated reasons that I can elaborate on if anyone is interested).
Great. I’m dying, apparently. My diet sucks, I drink too much alcohol, I smoke and my blood pressure last I checked was something like 160/95 and I don’t have health insurance. Nice knowing you guys.
ETA: I am 43
Given the amount of salt used in many foods though, you’d think it was for preservation, or maybe it is because people are used to eating salty food. Even reduced sodium foods are often still relatively high in sodium (e.g. 800 mg/400 mg per serving in a can of soup of the kind I often eat*, although they do have a lot of potassium, up to 2,000 mg/can, see posts about sodium/potassium ratio like barbitu8’s #23).
*Not because I have high blood pressure but because such problems occur from eating too much over a lifetime.
Also, another article for eating less sodium - New study finds that a salty meal reduces blood flow in your main arteries in just 30 minutes
Yeah, a SINGLE meal can cause noticeable changes in blood flow. Granted, that was with 4 grams of salt (1,600 mg sodium), but it isn’t that hard to consume that much; for example, a can of Campbell’s Chicken Noodle Soup contains an entire days worth of salt.