Your body functions rely on chemical reactions. These reactions generate energy, trigger muscle contractions, relay nerve impulses and regulate the activities of your body organs. Electrolytes are minute chemicals that carry a positive or negative charge. The major electrolytes in your body, including sodium, potassium and calcium, maintain the proper chemical environment to facilitate the many reactions necessary for healthy body function. An electrolyte imbalance disrupts your body chemistry, provoking symptoms in different organ systems. The symptoms you experience with an electrolyte imbalance depend on the specific electrolytes involved.
Muscle Spasms
Muscle contraction and relaxation depend on the balance of electrolytes in and around your muscle cells, and the nerves that control them. If your blood potassium level drops to an abnormally low level, you may experience painful muscle spasms. Intense sweating, severe diarrhea or vomiting, use of water pills, certain kidney disorders, anorexia nervosa and bulimia can cause a low blood potassium level, or hypokalemia, explains Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
You may also experience muscle spasms with a markedly decreased blood calcium level, or hypocalcemia. Vitamin D deficiency, insufficient parathyroid hormone, pancreatitis and certain types of chemotherapy medications are among the many causes of hypocalcemia, reports the Cleveland Clinic. Hypocalcemia caused by vitamin D deficiency requires supplementation with both micronutrients to correct the abnormality.
Numbness And Tingling
With a low blood calcium level, you may experience numbness or tingling in your fingers and toes and around your mouth, notes the Cleveland Clinic. These abnormal sensations may precede or occur along with muscle spasms or weakness.
Fatigue
You may experience fatigue with an electrolyte imbalance. An abnormal level of one or more electrolytes can lead to fatigue, including an elevated blood calcium concentration and a low sodium or potassium level. A severe electrolyte imbalance can become life-threatening, notes "The Merck Manual of Health & Aging." An abnormally high or low sodium level, for example, can lead to coma and death.
An abnormal sodium level may develop if you take water pills, have severe diarrhea or vomiting or lose a high volume of fluid through perspiring. Replenishing your fluids with an electrolyte-rich beverage during prolonged, strenuous physical activity can help prevent an electrolyte imbalance caused by profuse sweating.
Mental Status Changes
Your brain function may deteriorate with an electrolyte imbalance. Sudden anxiety, unexplained irritability, confusion, mental sluggishness and personality changes may occur with abnormally elevated or depressed levels of sodium and calcium, reports the medical reference text "Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine." Seizures and coma may occur if you develop a severe sodium or calcium imbalance. Because changes in brain function indicate a serious and potentially life-threatening abnormality, seek urgent medical evaluation if you experience mental status changes.
References
- Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center: Hypokalemia
- Cleveland Clinic: Hypocalcemia
- Cleveland Clinic: Hypercalcemia
- The Merck Manual of Health & Aging: Problems with Electrolyte Balance
- The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals: Hyponatremia
- The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals: Hypernatremia
