Case-Based Modules > Case 11 > Stage 6

Sorry! Raising the patient's sodium is unlikely to be helpful. For one, we'd need for there to be a gradient-- a difference between the patient's recent baseline level and our new target level. Secondly, this move wouldn't affect the patient's vasospasm. It's true that as patients go into vasospasm, their sodium can drop. This classically occurs alongside a rise in urine output, signalling cerebral salt wasting. However, "treating" vasospasm with raising the sodium has never been shown to affect outcomes. Cerebral edema isn't present on her neuroimaging, so we wouldn't really be treating anything with this measure.

Going back to the physiology of vasospasm, what other measure could we take to treat this patient's symptomatic vasospasm?

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