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Discussion

Question about dehydration, burns, and hypo/hyper

I'm studying Hurst for the NCLEX, and I'm confused about a few things. Sorry if this seems dumb, it's just all getting jumbled in my head.

my book says potassium and sodium have an inverse relationship.

in dehydration, sodium is high. So is potassium automatically low?

in burns, my book says they have hyperkalemia, but they are FVD. So shouldn't they be hypokalemia then?

i'm confused. Help.

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    Sodium potassium pump is your answer.

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    It depends what the cause of the dehydration is. If the cause of dehydration is diarrhea then K might be low. If it's from low water intake it might be higher. A burn pt's cells are damaged. Damaged cells rupture and spill out all their cell guts. That's where the extra K comes from, the cell guts. (This is not medical terminology)

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    I don't know how this might help, but I always remember that with fluid volume depletion, anything in the blood will likely be concentrated. (even if the value is WNL) .That will impact & guide my interpretation/assessment of any values I review. Then I do the hard thinking.

    Kind of like super-sweet cup of coffee - when you add more coffee, the taste (sugary) balances out. Glucose level (like the 10 teaspoons of sugar) is the same, just more diluted to a normal level where is tastes more normal.

    Like I said, that's the way I quick-think, then I reason out the why-fors & how-comes.

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