Salt tabs: Favorite brands? Dosage?

[wabi-sabi]

@Aspen
Oral rehydration solutions contain glucose to help the intestine absorb the sodium better. There's something called a sodium-glucose linked transporter on your intestinal cells that does this. Since these solutions are often used for children with scary amounts of diarrhea, they children don't have enough glucose in their intestine to absorb the fluid and sodium. In a healthy adult, I'm guessing there is enough food in your intestine to help the salt and fluid absorb so you probably don't need all that maple syrup.

I'm also guessing that some of your previous experiences with salt solutions and diarrhea were from too high a salt concentration, since drinking lots of sea water will give you diarrhea whether there's sugar in there or not. My doc recommended drinking both water AND an salt solution for best hydration, not just one. I try to alternate glasses of each throughout the day. Salt solutions are things like the commercially prepared hyrdalyte, pedialtye, or normalyte or home made stuff like Dr. Cheney's homebrew or your mix.

 

[Aspen]

@Aspen
Oral rehydration solutions contain glucose to help the intestine absorb the sodium better. There's something called a sodium-glucose linked transporter on your intestinal cells that does this. Since these solutions are often used for children with scary amounts of diarrhea, they children don't have enough glucose in their intestine to absorb the fluid and sodium. In a healthy adult, I'm guessing there is enough food in your intestine to help the salt and fluid absorb so you probably don't need all that maple syrup.

I'm also guessing that some of your previous experiences with salt solutions and diarrhea were from too high a salt concentration, since drinking lots of sea water will give you diarrhea whether there's sugar in there or not. My doc recommended drinking both water AND an salt solution for best hydration, not just one. I try to alternate glasses of each throughout the day. Salt solutions are things like the commercially prepared hyrdalyte, pedialtye, or normalyte or home made stuff like Dr. Cheney's homebrew or your mix.

Helpful explanation about glucose, thank you, makes a lot of sense. I tried Dr. Cheney’s homebrew yesterday with just a splash of maple syrup for flavour and got diarrhea within a few minutes, but when I added more syrup to the same mix it works well. The recipe I was following says 1/4 cup syrup per litre, but I can use around 1/5 or maybe a bit less without getting a bad reaction.

I wonder what it says about my gut - I have celiac disease so I have quite a bit of intestinal scarring, maybe a complicating factor. I also really struggle getting enough calories into my body since digesting tends to make me crash, so maybe I’m just that much underfed. I try to eat as much as I can when I‘m wearing compression stockings, they really help reduce that symptom. I often feel ravenously hungry when I eat with them on, my body feels so relieved to be able to handle food better. I’ve also tried alternating ORS with water, but I’ve found I couldn’t keep the POTS under control that way. I do miss a nice fresh glass of water. But this thread helped me clear up a few big ORS questions I had, so nice to feel more confident in my options!

 

[wabi-sabi]

I wonder what it says about my gut - I have celiac disease so I have quite a bit of intestinal scarring, maybe a complicating factor. I also really struggle getting enough calories into my body since digesting tends to make me crash, so maybe I’m just that much underfed.

Wow, you are dealing with a lot. This is such a hard situation with so many competing needs to balance, isn't it? I hope you find something that works.

 

[Aspen]

Wow, you are dealing with a lot. This is such a hard situation with so many competing needs to balance, isn't it? I hope you find something that works.

Thank you.

 

[wingate]

I used the nutrition facts from a brand name mix as my guide for a cheaper homemade version.

I mix 16g table sugar, 2.5g table salt, and 1.5 g salt substitute (potassium chloride) with 32 oz of water.

Like others say, the taste is somewhat acquired, so I tend to mix in flavored seltzer water or a squeezed lemon or lime to give it a better taste.

 

[L'engle]

I used to put non-iodized sea salt into capsules and swallow them. I found after some time this was inflaming the lining of my stomach. Around that time I started b12 and then the lithium orotate experiment happened and since then my electrolytes have been weird so I haven't been salt loading. Making a really salty soup broth can work though it can taste pretty gross once there is more than a normal amount of salt in it. Strangely it is actually glutamates (such as msg) that provide the 'good' flavour associated with salt, whereas heavy sodium just tastes kind of strong and sharp.

I've absorbed potassium and magnesium through foot baths, but I haven't tried that with sodium. It might be worth trying as transdermal absorption can be pretty good for some things. This can be a good way of not placing the extra strain of minerals on your stomach if you are loading them long term, as many of us are.

 

[wabi-sabi]

You cannot absorb minerals like potassium, magnesium, or sodium through your skin.

Article here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579607/

 

[Jyoti]

I have landed on Vitassium by Salt Stick. You can join a 'club' at Salt Stick to get your Vitassium at slightly reduced prices if you have dysautonomia. They work best for me--I tried Dr. Cheney's home brew (made me noticeably ill), I tried measuring and salting food to get enough that way (could not manage to eat it all), I tried Normalyte (made me very ill), and finally got my Vitassium in the mail. I take 4 caps a day, split. This comes to a total of 1000 mg sodium and 200 mg of potassium.

 

[Rebeccare]

I have landed on Vitassium by Salt Stick

That's what I eventually got as well!

They seem like a nice brand that cares about people with dysautonomia

 

[Judee]

I posted this website on another thread but wanted to share it here too: https://www.idealnutrition.com.au/glycerol-supplement-guide/

It talks about how athletes use glycerol (also called glycerine) and sodium to increase their fluid retention during events. The article calls them "hyperhydration strategies."

Anyway, I thought it was interesting. I included more info in that other thread as well, here: https://forums.phoenixrising.me/thr...s-unable-to-hydrate.79695/page-2#post-2413363

 

[YippeeKi YOW !!]

It talks about how athletes use glycerol (also called glycerine) and sodium to increase their fluid retention during events. The article calls them "hyperhydration strategies."

Really interesting info that's, like, totally news to me (not that that's unusual)!!!! Glycerin and salt for hyper hydration???? I love learning new stuff, and thank you for posting this, it's going to help a lot of new members, as well as a lot of more seasoned ones !!! Oh crap ..... pun totally accidental, and I apologize for it .....

 

[SpinachHands]

Apologies for reawakening this old thread, but couple of Q's for "salt heads". My partner usually uses Nutricosts 1g sodium chloride tablets in the morning, and often as a rescue boost in the afternoon when their BP drops. They've tried electrolyte tablets like vitassium but it boosts their HR way too much, we only use maybe a half of one of those if their HR is dropping. Unfortunately their usual nutricost salt tablets seem to be out of stock everywhere, any recs for other pure sodium chloride tablets, with no other electrolytes?
They can't tolerate doing salt water, would it be safe for me to home-make salt tablets by measuring sea salt into capsules? Or would that mess with their stomach?
Thanks!

 

[wabi-sabi]

I use vitassium and normalyte pure.

I don't think it's possible for vitassium to raise the heartrate. It is just sodium chloride and potassium chloride. If you were putting sea salt into a capsule, you would be essentially making vitassium at greater effort.
Nutricost salt tablets have 1000mg sodium chloride. Vitaassium tablets have only 500mg sodium chloride. Your partner may need 1000 mg sodium to impact blood pressure.

Bear in mind with orthostatic intolerance that you need to be taking fluid and slat around the clock. If you wait until a person is dehydrated to take in salt and fluid you are already behind. I suspect this is why vitassium appears to raise the HR. I take vitassium on a schedule, one pill every few hours to prevent this. It affects heartrate chronically, not acutely.

Also, when you are severe your heartrate fluctuates greatly to almost any stimuli. When I'm in a flare up, lying on my side rather than my back with shoot up my heartrate. The point I'm trying to make is, it's really not the vitassium that's causing the heartrate increase. It's the illness. Also, when a person is this severe, fluid an salt are less effective than medication (although still necessary).

Of course you can make up your own salt solution. It's cheaper, but it's more work, so it depends whether you are more short of time or money.

Here are three good resources:
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/WHO-FCH-CAH-06.1
https://www.healthrising.org/blog/2...al-rehydration-pots-chronic-fatigue-syndrome/
https://batemanhornecenter.org/wp-c...er,to avoid dilution of the normal body salts.

 

[Judee]

Wanted to follow up with more info I found on the glycerol that I posted about in #30. I just found out it can actually make someone more hyponatremic according to this study so wanted to put that warning out there for anyone who was thinking of trying it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8001428/

"However, one caveat should be noted. As glycerol dilutes both intracellular and extracellular fluids prior to exercise, it may predispose athletes to low serum Na+ as described in the next paragraph, especially if aggressive drinking occurs during exercise. A similar predisposition to low serum Na+ has been reported for deliberate overhydration with water and dilute fluids [24,60,61]."

Sorry about that. I should have investigated further when I posted that.

 

[maddietod]

I just got Peter Rowe's book 'Living Well With Orthostatic Intolerance.' He mentions Thermotabs and Saltstick Vitassium (just as examples, not as exclusive recommendations). He recommends starting by taking one, and increasing gradually to up to 2 tablets 3x a day, finding the optimal personal dose.

What struck me is that the ratio of sodium : potassium is not the same. Thermotabs' is 12:1 and Saltstick's is 50:1. He has a table of rehydrating fluids also, which shows similar patterns.

He does not comment on this. I'm thinking that the amount of potassium isn't critical. He does emphasize the importance of drinking at least 2 liters daily.

 

[kushami]

@maddietod, thanks for mentioning the book. I read a little bit from the sample pages online. I might request my local library to order it so lots of people may see it on the shelf.