Too Much vs Not Enough: Is Stealth Sodium Throwing Off My Count?

According to most sources, >1500-2000mg of sodium is too much and <1200mg is not enough. Recent experience has me questioning these numbers - specifically the 1200mg one.

My Meniere's symptoms had all but disappeared during the summer when I was making a concentrated effort to keep my sodium intake as low as possible. It was probably not even consuming 800mg a lot of days (if my calculations were correct). No dizziness or vertigo, no sense of aural fullness, and most days I did not have any noticeable tinnitus. Went to my first recheck with my doctor and mentioned all this. He warned me not to go too low on sodium, so I started to relax a bit to bring up my daily consumption to around 1200mg. About a month later I was having tinnitus nearly every day and then had a string of horrible vertigo episodes.

After the really bad week of nausea and vertigo, I cut way back on the sodium again. Now that a week has passed with no dizziness, I have had two straight days of quiet. No tinnitus! When my ear doesn't ring, I know I won't have any problems with vertigo. It is a nice feeling.

There are only two conclusions I can draw from this experience. Not sure which one (if either) is correct. Either my daily sodium consumption to prevent Meniere's attacks is much lower than the recommended 1500mg, or I am consuming more sodium than I think I am. The second option seems more plausible. Fresh foods that do not come with a nutritional label may be the problem - especially meats. It is much easier to figure out my sodium intake when the info is there on a nutritional label. I am going to have to compile a list of sodium content for fruits, meats and vegetables so I can make sure I am including it in my sodium counts. Will also have to be more vigilant about buying organic meat that hasn't been injected with salt or MSG.

My other thought is why are the sodium recommendations the same for everyone? Shouldn't it matter what a person weighs? Active vs sedentary? How much water they drink? How much they sweat? For now, I am taking the 1200mg floor with a grain of salt (pun intended). If I am feeling good with 800mg a day and don't have any symptoms of sodium deficiency then that is how I will be eating from now on. But just in case, next time I see my doctor I will request that they order a lab test to make sure my body's level of sodium is within the normal range.

The First Day

The day I got the diagnosis was almost anticlimactic. After my hearing test, which showed low-frequency hearing loss in my left ear, there were two likely possible causes: an acoustic neuroma (which is a benign brain tumor) or something called "Meniere's Disease". When I first started experiencing symptoms and searching for possible causes, I had ruled both of these out because they are rare. Unfortunately for me, all the common causes were ruled out by my doctors after lots of tests. So it turned out to be Meniere's by default - because it wasn't any of that other stuff.

I was pretty bummed out by the news that the primary treatment was a low sodium diet. I'll have to do that forever, and hopefully it will prevent the vertigo attacks and stabilize my hearing loss where it is now. Most importantly, we don't want this spreading to the other ear.

Disappointed, but determined to cheer ourselves up, my husband and I decided to go hear a live band at a bar that evening. I knew it would be a challenge to find something I could eat, but what the hell. I ordered the garden salad with grilled steak and balsamic vinaigrette on the side. I didn't think it would be that salty, which was a nice theory, but when I got the salad it was also covered in cheese (which has lots o' sodium) and black olives (which contain metric craploads of sodium). I felt like a little kid having to pick all that out of the salad before I ate it.

And that was the not-so-awesome start of my new low sodium lifestyle. I'd like to say it gets better from here, but so far this is hard as hell. I feel like there is so little I can actually eat and I am constantly HUNGRY. It is probably way too early to make any sort of prognostications. I'd settle for learning more about what I can and can't eat and having meal choices not be such a damn depressing chore. Time will tell. I hope I get better at this. I also hope that my taste buds adjust and at some point things will not universally taste like they need salt!!!