For mildly low sodium, increasing your salt intake through food, broth, or salt tablets is often the first step. Normal blood sodium falls between 136 and 145 mEq/L, and anything below 135 is considered low. What you should take depends on how low your levels are and what’s causing the drop, so the right approach ranges from simple dietary changes to hospital-administered IV fluids.
Foods That Raise Sodium Levels
When sodium is only slightly low (130 to 135 mEq/L) and you’re not experiencing serious symptoms, boosting sodium through diet is a practical first move. Some foods pack far more sodium per serving than others. Bouillon cubes and powdered broths contain roughly 20,000 mg of sodium per 100 grams, making a cup of salty broth one of the quickest ways to get sodium into your system. Soy sauce delivers about 7,000 mg per 100 grams. Hard cheeses come in around 800 mg, and processed cheeses can reach 1,320 mg per 100 grams.
Processed and cured foods are reliably high in sodium. Bacon provides about 1,500 mg per 100 grams. Canned fish, canned vegetables, and snack foods like pretzels and cheese puffs sit in a similar range. For perspective, plain unsalted peanuts contain just 2 mg of sodium per 100 grams, while dry roasted peanuts jump to 790 mg. Canned tuna has about 320 mg compared to 47 mg in raw tuna. Fresh fruits and vegetables are nearly sodium-free (5 to 10 mg per 100 grams), so they won’t help here.
If you’re trying to raise your sodium through food, lean toward salty broths, pickled foods, salted nuts, cured meats, and cheese rather than just sprinkling extra table salt on meals. These foods deliver sodium in a form your body absorbs steadily alongside other nutrients.
Salt Tablets and Oral Supplements
Salt tablets (sodium chloride tablets) are sometimes recommended for people with chronically low sodium, particularly those whose levels drop because of a condition called SIADH, where the body holds onto too much water and dilutes the sodium in your blood. In these cases, doctors may prescribe salt tablets alongside fluid restriction to push sodium levels back up. Salt tablets are also used for people who lose excessive sodium through sweat or certain kidney conditions.
These tablets are available over the counter and by prescription, but taking them without knowing why your sodium is low can backfire. If low sodium is caused by heart failure or liver disease, extra salt can worsen fluid retention and make things worse. The cause matters enormously, which is why a blood test and a clear diagnosis should come before you start supplementing.
Fluid Restriction: Sometimes the Fix Is Drinking Less
Low sodium isn’t always about not getting enough salt. Often it’s about having too much water in your body, which dilutes the sodium that’s already there. In these cases, the treatment isn’t adding sodium but restricting fluids. This is the standard first-line approach for SIADH, the most common cause of low sodium in hospitalized patients.
Typical fluid restriction starts at less than 1,000 mL (about 4 cups) per day. In stubborn cases, that can be tightened to 800 mL, though sticking with that long-term is difficult for most people. Even reducing intake by 500 mL below your usual daily amount can be enough to tip sodium levels in the right direction if the imbalance is mild. This includes all fluids: water, coffee, soup, anything liquid.
Medications That Can Cause the Problem
Before adding anything to your routine, it’s worth knowing that low sodium is frequently caused by medications you may already be taking. Three drug classes are the biggest culprits: water pills (thiazide diuretics like hydrochlorothiazide), antidepressants (especially SSRIs like fluoxetine, paroxetine, and sertraline), and certain anti-seizure drugs (carbamazepine and oxcarbazepine are the most common offenders). Antipsychotic medications, both older and newer types, also carry risk.
Thiazide diuretics typically cause sodium to drop within a few weeks of starting them, though it can happen at any point. SSRIs and similar antidepressants carry the highest hyponatremia risk among all antidepressant classes. If your sodium is low and you take any of these medications, the solution may involve adjusting or switching the drug rather than trying to counteract it with extra salt. This is a conversation for your prescriber, not a DIY fix.
Electrolyte Drinks: Helpful or Overhyped?
Sports drinks and oral rehydration solutions contain sodium, but the amounts are relatively modest, typically 200 to 800 mg per liter depending on the brand. They’re useful if your low sodium is tied to dehydration from vomiting, diarrhea, or heavy exercise. In those situations, your body has lost both water and salt, and replacing both together makes sense.
However, if your low sodium comes from water retention rather than salt loss, drinking more fluid of any kind, even salty fluid, can make the problem worse. This is why knowing the underlying cause is so important. Electrolyte drinks are a reasonable option for dehydration-related sodium loss, but they’re not a universal fix.
Hospital Treatments for Severe Cases
When sodium drops below 125 mEq/L or causes neurological symptoms like confusion, seizures, severe nausea, or loss of consciousness, this becomes a medical emergency that requires IV treatment. Doctors use concentrated salt solution (hypertonic saline) delivered directly into a vein. This is never something to attempt at home.
The critical challenge with severe low sodium is that correcting it too quickly causes its own form of brain damage, called osmotic demyelination syndrome. Current guidelines recommend raising sodium by no more than 8 mEq/L in any 24-hour period for high-risk patients, and no more than 10 to 12 mEq/L for average-risk patients. This is why severe cases require frequent blood draws and close monitoring in a hospital setting.
For people with low sodium tied to heart failure or liver cirrhosis, where the body is retaining large amounts of fluid, doctors sometimes use a class of prescription drugs that block a hormone responsible for water retention. These medications promote water loss without flushing out sodium, helping to concentrate sodium levels back toward normal. They’re reserved for cases that don’t respond to fluid restriction alone.
Matching the Treatment to the Cause
The right approach depends entirely on why sodium dropped in the first place. Low sodium from dehydration (due to vomiting, diarrhea, or not drinking enough) calls for replenishing both fluids and salt through broths, electrolyte solutions, or IV saline. Low sodium from water retention (SIADH, heart failure, liver disease) calls for fluid restriction, and sometimes salt tablets or prescription medications. Low sodium from a medication side effect often resolves when the medication is changed.
Mild cases with no symptoms can often be managed at home with dietary salt and monitoring. Moderate cases (125 to 130 mEq/L) typically need medical supervision and a clear treatment plan. Anything involving confusion, muscle cramps, seizures, or vomiting warrants immediate emergency care, regardless of what number shows up on a lab result.