Low Sodium Diet

Person A: "Want to hear a joke about sodium?" 

Person B: " Na"

That is your dose of a little science geek humor.

Ethan had his pacemaker and defibrillator implanted back in June 2020.  While Ethan’s one cardiologist was working on him, the other cardiologist stopped by.  He sat with me.  We discussed Ethan’s condition and how serious it was.  Then, the doctor told us it was time to start Ethan on a low sodium diet. Ethan is in heart failure.

Those are some scary words that caused panic.  Is he going to die?  How am I going to tell Ethan? How do we fix it? I am the mom and the mom is supposed to fix stuff.

Heart failure is defined as a condition in which the heart doesn’t pump blood as well as it should.  There are varying degrees of heart failure. Ethan has Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) with restrictive tendencies.  HCM is a disease in which the heart muscle becomes abnormally thick. The thickened heart muscle can make it harder for the heart to pump blood. The "restrictive" tendencies just means that his ventricles are excessively rigid, and the filling of the ventricles with blood between heart beats is impaired. 

Ok, what is the bright side?  The entire family will start eating a low sodium diet.  We will all be a little bit healthier. That seems like a fairly do-able trade off.  We can do this. My direction was to cut down Ethan’s salt intake to 2000 mg per day.

Everything has sodium.  Every. Damn. Thing. Every damn frozen food, damn canned food damn prepared meal.  Every damn snack, every damn treat, every DAMN everything.  How are we going to be able to do this? BREATHE!  It is all about balance.  We can eat sodium low foods and splurge at one meal or have several small low sodium meals.  We are in the driver seat and having control of the wheel is key. We can DO this.

A friend told me about her dad using a product called No Salt.  It is supposed to taste like salt. I had Instacart deliver some the next day (I have to use Instacart because there is a stupid pandemic virus that could kill my kid so I am not taking any chances).  I was kind of excited to taste this salt that wasn’t at all salt. Was this stuff magic?  It may just solve all my problems.

I poured a little bit more than I should have into my hand.  I dumped it into my mouth.  What I thought was going to happen was that the No Salt would taste exactly the same as regular salt. 

I was SO wrong.  My mouth was ambushed by this putrid substance.  My salivary glands went into overdrive trying to abort this horrific situation.  “Why are you making that face?” Avery wanted to know.  Now my mouth was filled with a thick saliva and No Salt mixture, a paste almost,  that was asphyxiating me. I was attacked, in my mouth, with this nasty substance that was so bitter and awful.

After spitting into the sink several times, I wet a paper towel and aggressively wiped my tongue. I then swished with water.  Avery was laughing at me. “Oh my god!  That was super gross!” I said.  My eyes still watering tears of disgust, horror and lies.

Avery then tried it.  She said it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be and I was being a little dramatic. She enjoyed the flavor. I am not sure what is wrong with her.

Ethan would be the real test.  The next day, I got home from work. Ethan said “I tried the No Salt”.  “Oh yeah? What did you think?” He then said “it was kind of gross.”  I told him about my ordeal and that it was more than kind of gross. On to the next.....

I bought several flavors of Mrs. Dash no sodium herb mixtures.  So far these have been tasty.

I also started making mass meals for Ethan.  He isn’t  one to really enjoying preparing himself a meal. I found low sodium bread, spaghetti sauce, snacks etc.  You really have to check the serving size.  One bag of chips bragged about having "low sodium" only 55 mg per serving. Each serving is 6 chips. WHAT? What delinquent only eats 6 chips in one sitting? 

Every week or so I started to produce low sodium meals that Ethan and the rest of us could heat up in the microwave. We started to find foods that were “free” foods, that had a sodium content of zero.  He could fill up on these things and be safe.

I found some low sodium English muffins and began to prepare breakfast sandwiches with a half slice of Swiss cheese (because the sodium content is 35 mg) and stuck them in the freezer.  

There is a low sodium BBQ sauce that Jim Beam makes.  Ethan enjoys pulled pork BBQ. Pair with some rice and veggies.  BOO YAH! Happy kid AND low sodium.

I made a batch of meatballs so that he could have “impasta” (get it? Imposter pasta? I love a good pun.) pasta which is made with beans or rice depending on the week.

Ethan really likes the Shepard’s pie.  It is made with ground turkey, potatoes and vegetables.  I can easily make a large tray of it and make 14 meals for the freezer.  It is also nice to grab these little meals and have a healthy lunch.

Then there is the hurdle of eating out.  UGH! What a huge pain in the ass. It's hardly worth the amount of effort we have to put forth.  We have to look at the menu ahead of time.  We look at the salt content of each item that Ethan would potentially want to order and see what has the lowest sodium content.  A lot of meals have over half of his daily allotment. He has to adjust what he eats for the entire day that he eats out.  This also goes for simple things like getting a donut, ice cream cone, sub or even slice of pizza.  

Have you ever asked Dunkin Donuts for their nutritional menu?  It is like 32 pages of fine print.  Having to scroll through and find something that would fit this new life style was tedious.  I ended up walking out that day empty handed.  I had to give the menu back and when I was asked if I was ready to order, I said "Nope, I am all set for today."

What a pain in the ass!  It is a do-able pain in the ass though.  Sometimes these small adjustments can make a huge difference.  I monitor Ethan’s hands and feet daily for swelling.  So far, so good. Our sodium sacrifice seems to be going well. But, buyer BEWARE....No Salt = No thanks!

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