Not Just Bloating—This Was a Full-Blown Crisis

My scale decided my dose. My labs decided my life.No one prepares you for the mental load of managing fluid overload. Every ounce matters living with a sodium sensitivity.

For some people, watching sodium means skipping the fries or cutting back on chips.

For me, it meant survival.

I was hyper-sensitive to sodium. I don’t mean a little bloating here and there. I mean hold on to fluid like my body was a sponge, no matter what I did!

I tracked everything. I’m talking grams of sodium, milliliters of fluid, daily weights, and lab draws every other day. I stopped cooking with salt entirely. I switched to low-sodium or no-sodium options across the board. Reading labels became my second language.

And still—my body held on to fluid like it was saving it for a drought.

My doctors had me on 100mg of torsemide twice a day—that’s a high dose of a powerful diuretic. Every other day, we added .25mg of metolazone to really push things along. And because those meds drain everything, I was also taking 60 mEq of potassium twice a day just to keep from crashing.

But here’s what people don’t see: I had to weigh myself every single morning—before breakfast, before anything—just to figure out how much medicine I needed that day. If I was up a pound or two? That meant my body was already starting to fill up again.

Every number mattered. Every ounce. Every pill. Every choice.

And mentally? It was exhausting.

There was no “off switch”—I couldn’t take a break from monitoring, planning, second-guessing, and adjusting. One missed sign, one off day, and I could end up in the hospital again, drowning in my own fluid.

This wasn’t just about staying healthy—it was about staying alive.

If you’ve never had to micromanage your body like this, it’s hard to understand the mental load it takes. But for those of us who’ve lived it… we know.

So if you’re walking this tightrope too—juggling fluid, sodium, labs, meds, and your sanity—I see you. You’re not alone in this fight.

💬 Let’s talk about it: How do YOU manage sodium sensitivity? What helps you stay sane when your body doesn’t follow the rules?

#Heart2HeartTalk #HospiceSurvivor #HeartBridgeCollective #SodiumSensitivity #FluidOverload #PatientVoice #SelfAdvocacy