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Moving to a retirement home?

Aging Well | Last Active: Mar 3 9:59am | Replies (56)

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You mentioned your dad had low sodium. How did they turn it around? Did he take medication? This just happened to my husband and am wondering what the options are.

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Replies to "You mentioned your dad had low sodium. How did they turn it around? Did he take..."

More salt in food, or sometimes they ask the patient to take one or two saline tablets each day. But here's what is often missed, and what I insisted upon when the kindly physician came to my Dad's flat to see him for the first time in the condition where he had had his worst fall: MONITORING!!
Look at it this way, everyone reading: think of the rapid evolution of an infant to toddler status and on until they start school. It's very rapid. The same thing happens in reverse at the other end of life. You 'unwind' quickly. This necessarily means that changes, dangerous ones, can happen on top of one another inside of weeks. So, if a body can't hang onto sodium, or magnesium, or potassium....shouldn't that be taken into account for a daily remedy? And how would you know how much, other than on a one-time physician's visit where he says, 'Take two of these each day?' How would HE ever know if two were too much or too little? So, an aged person needs more monitoring, more frequently, for the conditions for which they have been chronically treated. And yes, it is now in place for my soon-to-be 95 year old dad, stooped as he is, but still sharp and enjoying life. We'd like him to be comfortable and well.

Somehow this just appeared in my notifications. Not sure why so late...sorry.

They have him tablets, and he mixes his glasses of water, about three a day, plus tea, etc, with some salted tomato juice to make the water more appealing.

Your husband will need monitoring. It's not enough for him to take sodium tablets in perpetuity and not know if his blood pressure rises as a result, or if he's getting too little. I would urge you to ask for a two-month follow-up, and than another at six months just to keep tabs on his levels.