| There are also sex differences in sodium handling ability. Older women who have taken blood pressure medication for many years, e.g. 10 to 20 years, have risks of losing the ability to control well the concentrations of sodium and potassium in the blood. If they follow a low-sodium diet, they have a high risk of hyponatremia (too little sodium in the body). Depending on the diet, hypokalemia (too little potassium in the body) is also possible. If these conditions are not diagnosed promptly, severe illness or even death are the consequence. Unfortunately, I was not aware of these risks. My mother belonged to this risk group, but nobody knew this and her periodic blood tests were perfect, because they included many other tests, except the sodium and potassium concentrations in blood, which are mandatory to detect this problem. My mother had very serious problems because hyponatremia was detected too late, so I believe that more people should become aware of this risk. There are a lot of old women taking medication for high blood pressure, so all should know that a periodic cheap test for sodium in blood can easily prevent reaching a stage when complete recovery becomes difficult or impossible. Also, any low-sodium diet should actually measure or compute how much salt you eat, because too low sodium is even more dangerous than too high sodium. |