How Is Diuretic Therapy Monitored, And Why Is This Important?

— -- Question: How is diuretic therapy monitored, and why is this important?

Answer: Diuretic therapy is monitored in several ways. The most important is to measure the effect of the diuretic response -- of your response on a day to day basis. And that comes back to the daily weight recommendation for all patients on diuretics. In addition because diuretics do, as they remove salt, they also remove potassium and magnesium, and other electrolytes from the body. We do want to be checking potassium and magnesium on a regular basis. On a patient on stable amounts of diuretics, this checking will be on every three to six month basis. If we're adjusting diuretics, we may want to check more frequently to make sure that there are no adverse electrolyte abnormalities.