Barbara Goes To The Hospital

Friday, July 2, turned out to be another of “those days”. In early afternoon Barbara experienced leg weakness and fell a couple of times. Fortunately nothing was broken. She was also having some numbness so Jack gave her two aspirins and checked for stroke symptoms. Nothing else was evident, but suddenly her speech became garbled and she was unable to walk on her own. This meant a quick trip to the local emergency room where she was put on an intravenous therapy (IV) and given a battery of tests. As back in December 2009 there was no stroke damage, but she still remained somewhat disoriented. They then admitted her to the intensive care unit (ICU) for an overnight stay to monitor conditions.

The diagnosis was TIA (transient ischemic attack), but this time the saline IV helped considerably after about three hours. This indicated a salt deficiency, which had upset the electrolyte balance. Her regular physician, Dr. Jeff Saylor, came to see her at 10 AM Saturday and after reviewing the tests called Jack at home (they don’t let you hang around the ICU) and said she could be released. At noon we were on the way home.

The lesson learned from this event is to monitor the salt intake even more than we have been, especially in hot weather. The excess salt loss was attributed to a blood pressure medication prescribed in December. In this case the early warning signals were leg and foot cramps, however, even the doctor didn’t make the connection until later. It makes you wonder how many people are suffering due to the current “low salt craze”.

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