I've been having more and more problems with salt for a few years, especially late before I'm about to sleep. Eating out, beers at a pub with the associated salty nuts and food or a barbeque at home will render a night of bad sleep, nightmares and constipation the next day. Cutting down on salt is an obvious answer and I cook most meals from scratch with no or very little salt, bake my own bread (most recipes calls for 2 % salt, I find it salty enough at 0.5 %) but many ingredients come very salty as is, cheese and soy sauce to name a few which are too much work to make from scratch. Cooking myself usually solves the problem most of the time but eating out can't be avoided sometimes.
I can reduce the problem by drinking plenty of water before going to bed, but I will wake up to pee in the middle of the night and the urine is very diluted so I assume I drank more water than needed to keep the salt balance (I've read 0.6 % blood salt concentration), but I can still very much feel the effect.
Otherwise I'm slightly overweight but do cardio for 6-9 hours per week (cycling, skiing or running) so I'm definitely working on it and my stamina is better than most people my age, have no trouble sleeping and almost never constipated.
I'm thinking about seeing a professional about this, but what should I ask? What should I check up before to make it meaningful?
UPDATE: One and a half years since I posted this. Did see a physician who did take the time to do the blood work. Salt balance as in sodium to potassium balance was normal as was the overall salinity. He recommended me to keep eating less than 5 grams of salt per day. Still possible if I keep baking my own bread and cooking all meals from scratch. But still hell to pay if invited over for dinner or go out.