sodium level question????

[stuart2994]

ok guys plz help me out....if you have a chronic kidney failure, does that mean you have hyponatremia or hypernatremia??? i understand that when you have renal failure you retain sodium and excess water, so that means you have hypernatremia right?? but you also retain water and if you have too much water doesnt it dilutes the sodium?? im really confused, one book says its hypernatremia and the other book says its hyponatremia...so which one is it??

[RedCell]

depending on treatment and physiology of the patient, it could be either. typically people with chronic renal failure encounter hypervolemic hyponatremia due to their decreased glomerular filtration rate (usually below 10ml/min). they do have an increase in sodium retention, but the increase in total body water is greater. hypernatremia in regards to this topic is usually noted in the diuretic phase of acute renal failure for obvious reasons.

there are other factors to be considered and understood as well. primarily, look in to adh and vasopressin and the roles they play regarding sodium.

here is a link from pubmed that might give you a slightly better grasp on the subject:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19018744?itool=entrezsystem2.pentrez.pubmed.pubmed_resultspanel.pubmed_rvdocsum&ordinalpos=9

[Lulu222]

I was taught that Hyponatremia is a result of kidney disease