Getting on top of Potassium

I've been having a horrible time trying to stay on top of my K needs. Two days ago I started having extra low K symptoms-dreadful neck and shoulder muscle pain, itching, twitching muscles. I try and attack K from a variety of directions, food, potassium chloride in my own recipe electrolyte drink (No Salt with potassium chloride and a small amount of sodium chloride, D-ribose, Vitamin C, Creatine and liquid L-carnitine in a solution of water kefir and filtered water) as well as foot baths with potassium gluconate.

I supplement magnesium orally with mag glycinate and in foot baths with mag sulfate. I supplement calcium orally.

I'm in the middle of a dump of water from my body. I put on about 3kg overnight when I was ramping up my methylfolate dosage a couple weeks ago and have dropped 1.3kg of it over the last two days, which is no doubt making the potassium problem worse.

I get a minimum of 2g everyday from each electrolyte drink, plus food, plus 3-4 grams in the foot bath. I'm on my second electrolyte drink of the day, as the itching which had gone has come back and I've got muscle twitching starting up again. Neck and shoulder still hurt like the devil.

I'm currently on 1 squirt/day of the B12 Me/Ad oil, 9.6mg Metafolin in divided doses, 1000mg of LCF in liquid form, B-complex plus C (no folic acid or B12), 1000g Carlson's Fish Oil, Vitacost Multi-mineral, zinc drops, moly drops, Lugol's iodine (2 drops), 400mg Mag Glycinate, 500mg Silica and 100mg CoQ10.

Anything I'm missing or should it just be more of same with the K?

 

I supplement with Now potassium gluconate powder dissolved in water and drunk 4 times a day. This works well for me.

I tried getting potassium from food and I was getting nowhere.

 

For whatever reason, I can drink down several grams of potassium chloride without ill effect over the course of the day, but even much smaller doses of potassium gluconate send me off vomiting. Not nice, so I've started using it in foot baths as @ahmo suggested. Don't want to waste it or biff it.

 

can you tolerate tablet form?

 

I tolerate Potassium Chelate in capsule form, but they are so low dose, it is kind of a losing game.

 

I've noticed I have pee sprees whenever I take lots of potassium and forget to take extra salt. For years I've taken 1/4-1/2 tsp. of Himalayan salt in the evening, in water. Now that I'm taking frequent potassium on Freddd's protocol, I need more salt, or else I end up peeing every 15-20 minutes. I just figure that it's the potassium going straight through me.

According to Freddd, any more than small doses of B2 can make your need for potassium insatiable, but I haven't found that to be the case with me.

 

Only having the B2 in my B-complex, the one Fredd has recommended, so that shouldn't be an issue.

I definitely NEED to have some pee sprees, as you say, as I put on so much water weight during methlyfolate titration. The oedema is gross. I can pop a bit more sodium in, but I'm a generous salter and get some in the No-Salt powder in any case.

 

I'm no expert on balancing minerals, so the only other thing that jumps out at me in your program is the 9.6 mg of Metafolin. Did you ramp up that high because of deficiency symptoms? And can you ramp back down without ill effects?
Just curious, because I'm using the same oil as you, same dose -- the good stuff, LOL, from Australia. My Metafolin dose is between 4 and 5 mg/day, depending on symptoms.

 

Yes, ramped up the methylfolate for symptomatic reasons, Dropping the oedema is one of Fredd's primary signals that you've gotten enough methlyfolate in and that just started coming off at 9.6 mg. It is a pretty darn common dosage for a lot of people though, from what I see on the forum. I'd have to add another 50% and a bit again to get up to the dose of a Deplin pill, although I'm taking it sublingually and many people find that method allows them to cut their dosage in half from swallowing.

The B12 oil is fantastic. I love it.

 

i see

 

Try low-sodium V8 - it has 900 mg. potassium in an 8 oz. glass with only 50 calories. I've been taking potassium gluconate but having trouble getting enough potassium, until I found the V8. The low-sodium V8 has about twice the potassium as regular V8, and I'm taking much less potassium gluconate now.

 

I've been avoiding most veg to prevent confounding factors with veg folate, but it looks like V8 isn't much of a problem there. I get a couple of grams of potassium chloride in my electrolyte drink, but good to have new options for more.

 

I have been using a store brand veggie juice (regular). It has quite a bit of sodium along with the potassium. I add some magnesium and taurine powders to try to balance it.