Ménière’s disease, low salt diet

[Denise Fontenot]

Hello,

Since last year my health has sort of been turned upside down, and I am still in the process of getting it all diagnosed. One thing the drs feel that I have is Ménière’s disease, which requires a low salt diet (1500mg daily). When I started the diet, the symptoms cleared as well as some other things got better, like pain/inflammation in neck and some other issues. I also have a rare form of myoclonus called palatal  myoclonus, which is neurological in origin. 2 of my drs suggested that I try whole30. One of them suggested that perhaps the reason symptoms improved was because of the byproduct of the elimination of all kinds of junk in my diet due to cutting my salt intake drastically . I am very interested in seeing if this plan will help me see improvements in all of my health issues and I can cut going to see various doctors in what seems to be a long process in diagnosing everything  I would like to start in October. My 2 main questions/concerns are: Since the low sodium diet is the only thing so far that has helped, should i still track my intake? It makes things a little more tedious in trying some of the suggested Whole 30 recipes and meal planning. Also, I am 5’3” and 100 lbs (maybe a little less since I began tracking my sodium) I have been thin my whole life, and I don’t have an easy time gaining weight, and I really can’t afford to lose any weight at all. How can I ensure this from happening? I had read in the book about making sure you have enough carbs/ fats added to the meal, but should I continue tracking calories as well just to be on the safe side? I find it has been difficult to stay within my range (to not fall short) in low sodium. I apologize in advance for the long post  If anyone could share some helpful advice I would greatly appreciate it!

 

[ShannonM816]

Hi, Denise.

For tracking, on both the sodium and the calories, if you need to be sure you stay within a certain range, you'll probably want to track at least at first. As you go along, you'll probably get a good feel for how much you're getting, and then you might just need to plug in new recipes to a calculator to see how they fit into things. If the thought of tracking every thing you eat as you're eating isn't appealing (which I totally understand, it's a pain to do), you might be able to plan out what you intend to eat for a day or two and fill it all in to see if you'll have everything at the levels you need it to be, and then not worry about tracking throughout the day as long as you follow that plan. The plus side to doing it this way, as a plan instead of tracking throughout the day, is that you can adjust beforehand, and you're not going to get to your last meal of the day and realize you need to eat a massive meal, with absolutely no salt, in order to meet both your calorie and sodium goals. 

Since you know you need to keep weight on or possibly gain, you might want to read this article for some tips:  https://whole30.com/2013/12/keeping-weight-whole30/ -- basically though, you're going to want to eat at the upper end of the ranges on the meal template, be sure you include fat in your meals, and you may need starchy vegetables at multiple meals each day. (You can download the meal template here: https://whole30.com/pdf-downloads/.)

 

 

[Denise Fontenot]

Ok! Thank you so much for your help!