Alright, so I mentioned recently in another thread which I'm not quite ready to return to yet that last Wednesday night I went to the emergency room after consuming an excessive amount of water too quickly without having eaten anything, I was barely coherent, I was stumbling, had severe nausea, and mind was completely out if it, as if drunk. (I was screaming cuss words with my parents and in public at the hospital, which I never do) At the hospital they diagnosed me with hyponatremia and hypokalemia, they pumped me full of IVs with electrolytes and had me take potassium pills until sodium and potassium levels were stabilized. The attending physician came over at the end and explained everything, how my sodium levels had been severely diluted by all that water, which causes cells to swell with water and all that, and how I need to keep my electrolytes balanced and stuff. Now I felt a bit better after that. However, while not to the severe extent of the other night, it seems to be a chronic problem with me. Pretty much every night I feel like complete shit, I'm always nauseated and fatigued, my mind is always blurry, I get the shakes and my teeth chatter. I thought it was all just my anxiety and depression, but there seem to be physical components to why I feel so lousy all the time too. I've tried to adjust my diet. I've been trying to be more cognizant of my water intake and slow it down; I'm used to drinking multiple litres of water a day non-stop, and not eating anything until dinner time. Now I limit my water, I drink Gatorade in between water bottles, I eat lunch, I've been eating a lot of bananas and pretzels during the day. (Though now my stepfather harasses me for eating too much). But I still end up feeling awful, I woke up this morning with a really bad headache, and now I have it again, I have muscle aches, nausea, I have no energy, my mind is cloudy, I don't feel coherent or normal at all. :help: I've already made like dramatic changes to my daily routine, I feel like I've already put on weight from all this eating. And yet day-after-day I constantly feel like shit, to put it bluntly. I never feel well to do anything, I'm always tired, so it's gotten to the point where I'll just go to sleep to get the day over with, in the hope that I'll feel better the next day, which doesn't happen anyway; and the cycle repeats each day and night. Wasted days and wasted nights. Anyone have any advice on how to keep electrolyte levels balanced? Should I take supplements or something? Does my body just need time to adjust or something? Or do you think it could be something else causing me to feel this way? At the hospital they did blood work and x-rays, I don't think they found any other issues though.
Hyponatremia is very rare. I've only seen two cases of it in a healthy adult- one was a condition called polydipsia (where a person compulsively drinks excess amounts of water) and the other was a runner who had been drinking excessive amounts of water during a long run. Generally, when someone comes to us with abnormal potassium and sodium levels, we eliminate psychological causes and start looking at medications they're taking and start doing tests for endocrine disorders. If you have been having these symptoms for a while, then you should make an appointment with your primary physician for additional testing.
In addition to KB, make sure you are eating balenced meals until you see your doctor. Don't eat just bananas and pretzels for potassium and sodium. Make sure to get meat, dairy, and veggies in.
