Hyperchloremia is when you have too much of the electrolyte chloride in your body. It doesn’t cause any symptoms — healthcare providers diagnose it through a blood test. Causes include dehydration, eating too much salt and certain medications. Treatment depends on the underlying cause.
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Hyperchloremia (hi-per-klawr-EE-mee-uh) is a condition in which you have high amounts of chloride in your blood.
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Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. Policy
Chloride is a type of electrolyte that’s most commonly found in table salt (sodium chloride). Electrolytes are minerals that have a natural positive or negative charge when you dissolve them in water or other body fluids, such as blood.
Chloride helps your body:
Hyperchloremia can have many different causes, including:
Dehydration occurs when you don’t drink enough fluids (especially water) or your body loses a lot of water quickly. Causes may include:
The following may increase your body’s chloride levels:
Sometimes, treatments or certain conditions cause your body to reabsorb chloride. These may include:
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Chemotherapy may cause vomiting and diarrhea. This, in turn, can cause dehydration that leads to elevated chloride levels. Chemotherapy can also affect your kidneys’ ability to filter chloride out of your blood.
Hyperchloremia usually doesn’t have any immediate symptoms by itself. But the underlying causes of hyperchloremia have symptoms such as:
Without treatment, hyperchloremia may cause:
In extreme cases, hyperchloremia may also cause death.
Healthcare providers can diagnose hyperchloremia with a chloride blood test. A chloride blood test is a type of routine blood test. Let the provider know if you have a fear of needles (trypanophobia). They can recommend ways to help you relax so that the experience is less intense.
A provider may also recommend a urine chloride test, which is a type of pee test. A urine chloride test measures how much chloride your kidneys filter out of your blood and into your pee.
In most cases, you should get your blood test results back within a few days. Reach out to the provider if it takes longer.
Healthcare providers measure chloride in millimoles per liter of blood (mmol/L). The typical ranges are:
Healthcare providers diagnose hyperchloremia when chloride levels go above these ranges.
If you have high chloride levels in your blood, the treatment depends on its cause. Hyperchloremia treatment options may include:
If a provider diagnoses you with hyperchloremia, schedule regular follow-up appointments for blood testing. You may wish to ask the provider the following questions:
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Drinking more water, making changes to your eating patterns and adjusting medications usually resolve mild cases of hyperchloremia. With the proper care, most people don’t have long-term complications.
If kidney disease causes hyperchloremia, it’s important to work with kidney specialists to prevent or delay kidney failure. You may need to:
It depends on the underlying cause. But one of the best ways to prevent hyperchloremia is by avoiding dehydration. Make sure you drink enough water, limit the amount of salt you eat and treat other common causes of dehydration, like diarrhea or vomiting.
If you’re at risk of hyperchloremia, talk to a healthcare provider about the best ways to reduce your risk.
Hyperchloremia itself doesn’t cause symptoms, so it can be surprising if a routine blood test shows high chloride levels. Healthcare providers can treat it by addressing the underlying cause. Sometimes, that may mean making sure you’re drinking enough water, avoiding salt or adjusting your medications. But problems with your kidneys can also affect your chloride levels.
Talk to a healthcare provider about any concerns you have with their recommended treatment.
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