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@catmom777

I went in to see my pharmacist yesterday but he was real busy and couldn't talk to me. Maybe next time. I don't know how all that happened. I can't explain it. I had been feeling dizzy, confused, disoriented, and feeling awful for days, and increasingly so. I was convinced it was the blood thinners but the ER docs told me it wasn't. That's when they admitted me. They thought something was going on with my heart that didn't show up on the EKG. I also had chest pain BTW. After a heart stress test and an echocardiagram they determined that it was low sodium. Low sodium causes the brain to swell, which produced the symptoms I was having. After about 18 hours on a saline drip, I started to feel better and they released me when my sodium level got up to 132. It's supposed to be at least 136. Now, when I feel those symptoms, I take some Himalayan salt crystals and wait it out. That worked yesterday. Also though, they told me I had an electrolyte imbalance and was supposed to pick up some Gatorade. Maybe it's all this that initially caused my heart to go into afib because I've been told salt is a conductor. Anyway, one step at at time to get this sorted out. I just want to feel good again. I haven't felt right since this started and don't know why. It's all been so much to absorb.

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Replies to "I went in to see my pharmacist yesterday but he was real busy and couldn't talk..."

@catmom777 Hi catmom... I love that name. I have 3 kitties. One of the mistakes we can make as patients is to think that there is a causal relationship with something as in your example of linking your symptoms to a prescribed drug. While it might be true; it also might not. There are many variables in body chemistry, and a real scientific experiment has to eliminate other variables to be valid. Electrolytes are very important because all your muscles and nerve impulses are dependent on electricity that this generated by the charged ions crossing cell membranes. Your body needs sodium and potassium for this which are both positively charged. Potassium is absorbed because the sodium is kicked out of the cell by a "sodium pump" which by removing positively charged ions creates a void that is filled when the positively charged potassium ions enter the cell. The sodium crosses the cell membranes easily, but not potassium which is why your cells have to work to kick out sodium so they can absorb potassium. Both are necessary in the right amounts. Listen to your body and how you felt after the saline infusion. Your heart is the most important muscle in your body, and it generates it's own electrical signals to coordinate the heart beat. It's like a precision dance, and the atria have to pass the blood to the ventricles so they can send it out to the rest of the body. Thanks for sharing your experience. My elderly mom takes Eloquis and doesn't have symptoms of dizziness. there can be many other reasons for it too, some drug related, some physical problems in the inner ear, and sometimes problems with the spine that causes muscle spasms that move the upper cervical vertebrae which affects nerves and causes dizziness. That one I know about and have that in my own health experience. It's good to ask questions as a patient, and learn from it.