Does a person who sweats fairly heavy loose salt and would they tend to crave it?
Do heavy sweaters need to worry about replacing salts?
I have the opposite problem, I hardly ever sweat but notice if I do it is extremely salty. I tend not to crave much salt. I noticed my sodium readings on a blood test were at the high end of normal and am thinking maybe I should find some way to sweat more often. ( sauna?)
The salt content of sweat is less than the salt content of your plasma, so you’re never going to lose much salt that way (you’ll lose proportionally more water) so that could account for your elevated sodium readings. Replace your water aggressively when sweating and don’t go to a sauna to manage your sodium levels.
Although I’m no doctor, I was under the impression there is no downside to a lot of sodium unless you have high blood pressure (and you are one of the people that has it aggravated by sodium)
Cutting your salt intake is generally considered to be A Good Thing.
For the generic person in a household with 3.7 people and 1.9 kids. For any particular person, though, salt only appears to be bad if it causes high blood pressure. Not everybody is sensitive, though, and if your blood pressure is healthy there is nothing to be gained by cutting salt intake. And even if you have high blood pressure, there is nothing to be gained by cutting salt if that is not the source of the problem (high blood pressure can be caused by many things and salt is only one).
So a person can have high blood pressure and consume a high-sodium diet and not have that diet negatively effect the blood pressure?
Sure. Some people are not sodium sensitive. My sister had HBP for a while and tried cutting salt, but it made no difference and the health risks from HBP remained. She eventually discovered that her birth control medication was the cause. Once that was fixed, her BP returned to normal and she went back to her previous diet without problems.
Did the doctor who took the tests mention anything? The high end of normal is still normal after all. Maybe a follow up with the doctor if you feel like you need to ask.
Yes and maybe.
In some cases they might.
Sweating is not a good way to control salt levels. If you want to being your sodium levels down (but it is not very apparent that you need to), eat less salt or drink more water (or both).
moths are a bigger worry.
As noted by USCDiver, you lose more water than salt when you sweat. The short term result without intake to replace anything is making your plasma sodium level go up slightly. There is a wide range of sodium concentration in sweat both between individuals and within individuals depending on sweat rate and degree of heat acclimation (faster sweating leads to more sodium in sweat and heat acclimation leads to less) but even at its highest it is still less than plasma sodium levels.
If you have nomally functioning kidneys and a normally functioning brain you will have thirst that drives you to replace the water and your kidneys will preserve the amount of sodium you need out of what you eat and let the amounts you do not need get … flushed out.
Drinking more water will make you pee more but not lower your serum sodium concentration much except under very specific circumstances and only until your kidney gets a chance to correct it. One such circumstance has been created by (IMHO) bad advice commonly given to endurance athletes - drink before thirst and drink to your pee not being yellow. Doing such has sometimes resulted in dangerously low sodium levels, even death.