Salt, Sodium and Potassium: Connections To Meniere’s Disease Balance & Hearing Symptoms

Salt / Sodium and Potassium: Connections To Meniere’s Disease Balance & Hearing Symptoms

OVERVIEW: Why should we have this discussion?

We get many, many questions related to salt and potassium. The following information hopefully will add more insight.

My experience dates back to anatomy and physiology lessons learned along the path of a practicing RN. Even more helpful ones have come since we started this Meniere’s website. So the information I will share is based on science, plus practical applications: the everyday stuff you might find interesting to know.

But here is where people generally run into trouble. Salt is seen by the general public as table salt. In fact it becomes sodium chloride. However when a medical practitioner speaks about salt, they are often thinking about sodium, but recognize that their patient is most likely thinking about table salt: a bit confusing. I also struggled with this terminology. In the end I settled for the word “salt” in discussing the concept, as that is what everyone speaks about. We will use the term “sodium” and mean the actual chemical in relation to blood tests, etc. but when we talk about “salt” in foods, then we mean sodium chloride: a bit confusing, I confess.

But first I would like to make it clear that this information is only to give you more knowledge: to enhance what your medical practitioner has already given you or will give you. Please don’t use it to treat yourself or to diagnose any symptoms. Having this information fleshes out your professional support and makes it more interesting and also possibly more helpful. The more you know, and the more you can think all this through for yourself, the better your decisions will be.

Throughout the article I have listed resource sites and references to check out. It is important to keep in mind that each person’s body is different: no two people are alike. You need to keep in mind the relevance of previous “chemical influences”. They too can have an impact on your present state of health.

But each person is made with a body which works essentially the same way. The best way to ever deal with health issues is to know the basics: what makes up a healthy body. Become aware of the normal values and then strive to achieve these. Our goal is to help you move TOWARD HEALTH: not to keep your symptoms under control.

I want to give you insight as to why salt and potassium are such major players in Meniere’s disease. It’s good to have the medical knowledge, and you can find a lot of this on the Internet. However, you, the layperson, needs to understand why you are prescribed drugs or told to decrease or increase usage that deal with these suggestions.

So I will give you examples that will help you understand this a little better. You will learn about electrolytes and how your body craves balance. It strives to regain and maintain it, unrelentingly. We will discuss both electrolytes: sodium and potassium, their normal values, and what results when you have too little or too much. There will be examples of foods high and low in both “salt” and potassium. To help you understand how salt works, I will give you some examples. Lastly I will share some thoughts on nasal sprays and decongestants.

Again, I want to caution you not to use this information for anything other than gaining more knowledge. Throughout, there will be links to other sites. Please feel free to visit them and learn more. As I said before, the more you learn about your body, I trust the happier you will be. At least that is the feeling I often come away with in our phone calls.

ELECTROLYTES

Sodium and potassium are called electrolytes. They are an important part of the body’s balancing and rebalancing “act”. There are four other electrolytes besides sodium and potassium, (but they are not as well known to our Meniere’s readers)

These are calcium, chlorine, magnesium and phosphates.

Potassium is potassium. (Thank goodness!) As you may recall from high school chemistry, all chemicals have symbols to identify them more quickly (the names are often hard to handle!). Sodium is Na+ and potassium is K+.

Electrolytes are supplied on a daily basis by your foods and fluids (unless you are given them via drugs). Picture electrolytes as a ‘leavening agent” in your cake: without it the cake falls flat. Without electrolytes, your body won’t function.

Here is a good explanation from Medline that includes a link. This explains why you need to pay attention to salt and potassium from a medical perspective.

“Fluid and Electrolyte Balance

Medline describes the electrolytes this way: (direct quote) “Electrolytes are minerals in your body that have an electric charge. They are in your blood, urine and body fluids. Maintaining the right balance of electrolytes helps your body's blood chemistry, muscle action and other processes. Sodium, calcium, potassium, chlorine, phosphate and magnesium are all electrolytes. You get them from the foods you eat and the fluids you drink.

Levels of electrolytes in your body can become too low or too high. That can happen when the amount of water in your body changes. Causes include some medicines, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating or kidney problems. Problems most often occur with levels of sodium, potassium or calcium.”

http://vsearch.nlm.nih.gov/vivisimo/cgi-bin/query-meta?v:project=medlineplus&query=electrolytes&x=64&y=8

Note the reference to “when the amount of water in your body changes”…

Online Lab also has good wording: “Most sodium is found in the plasma, outside of the body’s cells, where it helps to regulate the amount of water in your body. Potassium is found primarily inside the body’s cells. A small but vital amount of potassium is found in the plasma, the liquid portion of the blood. Monitoring potassium is important. Small changes in the K+ level can affect the heart’s rhythm and ability to contract. Chloride travels in and out of the cells to help maintain electrical neutrality, and its level usually mirrors that of sodium. …..

Your diet provides sodium, potassium, and chloride; your kidneys excrete them. Your lungs provide oxygen and regulate CO2. The balance of these chemicals is an indication of the functional well-being of several basic body functions, including those performed by the kidneys and heart.”

http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/electrolytes/sample.html

Very important: remember that this is all about fluids. Remember that for later. Realize too that sodium is found primarily in the fluid parts of the body and potassium is found primarily in the cells. Let me give you a word picture to help you remember this. See potassium as a BALL swimming in a BOWL of salty water.

Your body is all about balance

As you can see from the above paragraphs, balance is really important and in this case, I don’t mean the balance related to the inner ear nerve, but rather the balance of the chemicals, fluids and your body.

Your body knows what it needs and is constantly striving to re-balance itself: to achieve that balance, automatically. You don’t have any choice nor do you have to do anything. As well, you do not have a choice when the depleted area “borrows” from the healthy one to rebalance itself.

As each area of your body is made up of individual cells, and surrounded by fluids, it makes sense to look at the health of the basic cell and understand how this fluid is managed.

You need to realize that when your body’s normal functions and activities get distorted, their outcomes (results) also automatically get distorted. That is called dis-ease: meaning that something is not right or not working according to what is needed. (“Di” means to be apart from or opposite to something.) So in a disease, this part of the body is apart from its healthy “state”.