Sodium comes from salt, which is sodium chloride. Although there is often too much of it in your body when your kidneys don't work properly, its level in the blood does not change much. This is probably because sodium makes you thirsty, so you drink more until the level is normal again. Having too much sodium in the body causes high blood pressure, oedema (swelling), and eventually severe problems such as heart failure and fluid on the lungs (pulmonary oedema).
Removing sodium is an important part of dialysis treatment. Diuretic drugs (e.g. furosemide) increase the sodium put out by the kidney. Most people with kidney disease need to keep down the amount of salt in their food. In the western world we have a tendency to add salt to food or in prepation of food using salt, therefore we take too much salt which may increase blood pressureby as much as 10/5, for example140/85 to 130/80.
What’s the Normal Range of sodium?
Normal blood sodium levels are 135 - 145 mmol/litre
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