went to a gathering and people were pressing me about the low sodium thing cause “if i know where you went wrong then i will be safe”
1) thinking i can just eat a lotta salt one day and be ok for a while
if you pee every day- you need sodium DAILY
2) “i mean i eat stuff with salt and i can just sip water to stay hydrated right?”
if ur like me and ur not paying attention: ur not getting enough sodium and ur sipping habit is putting too much water in ur body (ur piss should be light yellow- not clear)
3) not wanting to go to the hospital and believing i could sleep it off
when sodium gets too low you can’t fix it urself
and raising ur sodium too fast will kill you
im alive cause people and support brought my body there
4) assuming hyponatremia / low sodium is rare and only happens to athletes, those in hot weather, people doing drinking contests- people who are not me
its very common: more than 3 million US cases per year
its a common health condition that can affect anyone, regardless of age, sex, race, or ethnicity
every time i talk about this somebody knows someone who has been in the hospital from drinking too much water
first bad sign: clear piss, low energy (want to emphasize i was like this for a while- maybe a “long time” even- if you asked me how i felt i would’ve said totally fine, normal- seems like nothing is wrong with a functioning bridge but if a weak beam goes well now its a problem huh)
but then it escalated to headache, nausea and puking
then i made it worse and turned it into an ER situation by chugging gatorade and water (i was scared of dehydration from all the puking)
anyway how to probably not turn low sodium into an ER situation:
but if you can i guess its a good idea to just avoid low sodium in the first place
i’ll give myself one point where i got something right (even though it didn’t save me lol):
1) i went to the doctor for an annual physical / blood panels less than a year ago
doc said i was “extremely healthy”
sodium levels were normal
but i like the universe has a sense of humor and im not above being a punchline
probably still a good idea to go to the doctor whatever im not ur mom