Day 4: Salt, Salt Glorious Salt
A lack of salt can be dangerous When salt stores are low, symptoms can include fatigue, fever, muscle cramps, stomach pain, vomiting, dehydration, and heatstroke. As a child, I had several admissions to hospital due to low salt and dehydration. Then the fun started. Salt tablets. Nasty, nasty things! To avoid taking salt tablets, I now eat a lot of salt. Usually, my first symptom of low salt begins with a craving for salted potato chips or peanuts. When my salt is low, I crave Vegemite — and will suck on a spoonful of Vegemite. Hyponatremia: when the concentration of sodium in your blood is abnormally low. In 2020, for the first time in years, high Tacro levels (an immunosuppressant medication) blocked my craving for salt. My levels plummeted without warning and ended up dangerously low without the usual symptoms. Severe hyponatremia occurs when levels drop below 125 mEq/L. Health issues arising from extremely low sodium levels may be fatal. — Medical News Today My sodium level clocked in at 119mEq/L. Severe hyponatremia. For the next few days, I needed to take six salt tablets a day — and everything I ate contained salt. Like most CF-related things, despite my sodium levels bordering on organ shutdown, I looked healthy. From the outside, no one could tell I was dangerously ill. 31 Days of Cystic Fibrosis Bonus Fact All this extra salt on my skin makes me extremely attractive to the animal population. In summer, Mum’s horses would pin me to the rails and use my legs as a personal salt lick. My dogs have a blissful look on their faces when they lick my legs.
Want to read more about Cystic Fibrosis?
See the tabs under Cystic Fibrosis, or view my Medium publication Speaking Chronically for more!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Written bySandi Parsons - Cystic Fibrosis Warrior. |