Diuretics are sometimes called water pills because this type of drug promotes excretion of water from the body in the form of urine. Simply put, diuretics are drugs which rids off excess body fluids by promoting urination. Diuretics work by allowing more sodium particles into your kidney thus pulling in more water from your body and letting them out because as a general rule, where sodium is- water follows.
Uses of Diuretics.
Most often, diuretics are used in patients with Hypertension because this disease is mostly caused by an increased blood volume in the systemic circulation.
In cases of Heart Failure where the heart fails to pump blood in and out of the heart efficiently, diuretics are also used since in Heart Failure, the body fluids fail to efficiently go in or out of the circulatory system thus keeping the fluids stuck at certain are causing fluid accumulation and swelling.
In cases where a patient has edema, which is the swelling of body parts due to abnormal fluid accumulation, diuretics are also a great help.
Some diuretics are also used in cases of Glaucoma (an eye disorder caused by increased fluid in the eye causing increased eye pressure, resulting to extreme eye pain that may lead to blindness).
Types of Diuretics.
Diuretics come in different types and routes of administration. The type of diuretic used greatly depends on the patient’s condition and disease process. There are three basic types of diuretics:
Loop Diuretics work by retaining sodium in the kidney, thus pulling more water out of the system. Thiazide Diuretics or Potassium Wasting Diuretics works by letting water out of our system and losing Potassium ions in exchange of the sodium particles. Potassium Sparing Diuretics on the other hand, loses water out of the body without affecting the potassium level in our body.
Some diuretics may also contain combination of any of these types of diuretics and greatly depends upon the prescription of the doctor.