Electrolyte study help

[havoc028]

I am in fundamentals this year. I was told this is the hardest test of the semester. I have scored an 82 and 78 on the first two test due to stupid mistakes. I am a straight A student up till this point. I have had trouble developing a good study habit related to studying good content versus useless background content. What points should be stressed for Electrolytes? I am just trying to give myself some breathing room on the final. I realized where I went wrong on the previous two test. I have two good electrolyte books just trying to get some insight. Thanks

[pharmgirl]

OY!!! Electrolytes is brutal. My first semester I spent a lot of time trying to memorize all the bizillion s/s of the hyper and hypos and I still didn't feel like I had a grip. Now in my final semester, the s/s are all coming a lot easier because I think I can relate them to various disorders. Here's my suggestion, if you can get the basic patho stuff down as to what/how each lyte affects the body function it should help you figure out the s/s. For instance, we know we need calcium in order for our muscles to relax. If you have low calcium (hypocalemia) what would happen? .....your muscles can't relax so you are all tensed up....tetany and all the other stuff. The inverse of that would be hypercalcemia where you would have weakness. If you can get through the pathophys. of stuff you can get your brain around the rest.

Secondly, once you get the patho stuff, figure out which lytes work together and which ones are inverse. That will help you if at test time you can't remember what calcium does but you can remember what phosphorus does and you know calcium and phosphorus have an inverse relationship....voila! you got the s/s of both. Does that make sense?

Make yourself a "hypo" "hyper" chart. In my brain, I have somehow generalized hypo and hyper s/s. I could get into where my brain goes but that would be way too confusing even for me LOL. If you can make yourself a chart, you may be able to see similarities and you may be able to categorize in your brain. If that makes sense.

There is no magic potion for this unit and I hope this helps. If it sounds like you study the way I do, PM me and I will be happy to try to explain how my brain wrapped around this stuff, but the real key is the pathophys. That will help you more in the long run.

Good Luck!!!