Your body needs some sodium to function properly because it:

1) Helps maintain the right balance of fluids in your body
2) Helps transmit nerve impulses
3) Influences the contraction and relaxation of muscles

Your kidneys naturally balance the amount of sodium stored in your body for optimal health. When your sodium levels are low, your kidneys essentially hold on to the sodium. When sodium levels are high, your kidneys excrete the excess in urine.

USDA recommends a daily intake of 1500-2000 mg. of sodium per day. Most of us eat too much of it, along with too much of everything else. But sometimes, when we eat out of the ordinary by eating less of what we’ve been led to believe are the “bad” things, we can make ourselves sick by not getting enough of something we need. For instance, some people got the idea that fat was “bad” and ate so little of it that they suffered all sorts of deficiencies because fat is not only an essential nutrient itself, but is important to have in order to absorb all the fat-soluble vitamins.

We’d be better off if we stopped reading all the nonsense that is pumped out of the media every day and just remembered the nutrition lessons we got in grade school from the school dietician. Nutrition facts and guidelines, taught by the real scientists, haven’t changed much at all in several generations. We want there to be more to it, so we are suckers for the latest gossip.

I’m so glad you discovered what the problem was and how to solve it. Most of the time we will do fine with a variety and balance of selections from the food groups, but if we have a deficiency of an essential nutrient we will have trouble. Regular check-ups with a good doctor who orders all the tests should catch a deficiency like you had. I don’t know why your doctor didn’t catch it. You might want to find out why he or she didn’t.