• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Are you feeling bad on methylation supps? or starting methylation? IMPORTANT INFO RE LOW POTASSIUM

Lolo

Senior Member
Messages
306
Location
AUS
@Mary I am taking two potassium gluconate a day, 1 x a.m., 1 x p.m.
I decided not to try that citrate form because I was never any good with magnesium citrate. I don't know if there is a correlation but I get a reaction from oranges. I will be very careful with the potassium chloride - very small doses.
from wiki:
Potassium chloride is harmless for alimentation (and even good for health,). But intravenously, without the step of digestive absorption, this is reduced to just over 30 mg/kg (LD50] Most concerns are its severe effects on the cardiac muscles: high doses can cause cardiac arrest and rapid death.

So I'll be careful!!!

When I first tried the hemp protein I felt an immediate lift so that maybe a good sign to continue with it. I always think it is better to get nutrients from a variety of sources preferably fresh natural whole foods.
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,335
Location
Southern California
Hi @Lolo - that is a small dose, 200 mg. 2 x a day. I'm not telling you to take more, but just be aware it might not be enough. I know all about the warnings about too much potassium. What they don't tell you is that low potassium is dangerous too, and the RDA is 4500, so your 400 mg a day is a little less than 1/10 the daily requirement, which is not very much. But if you do good with this, amount great. (none of us are taking potassium intravenously which is a whole different ballgame)

I'm really glad to hear you felt better with hemp - definitely, anything that makes me feel better, I want to continue! :thumbsup:

I also agree it's best to get nutrients from foods if possible - for me it was too difficult to get enough potassium from foods, so I do a combo of foods and a supplement. Good luck --- :)
 

Lolo

Senior Member
Messages
306
Location
AUS
200 mg a day is me going slow.:)
So maybe I should buy a bulk box of potassium gluconate. :D

Years ago I had a blood test to find out why my skin was yellow - it was from all the yellow veg I eat. :jaw-drop:
But I was surprised that the doctor even noticed it, let alone tested for something. :wide-eyed:
 

Paralee

Senior Member
Messages
571
Location
USA
I learned from having to take calcium supplements always look on the active ingredients box. It should give the elemental amount in it. If not, I'm not sure I would get it.

The potassium says something like 595 on the front of the bottles (usually) but look under active ingredients and it should be somewhere around 99.
 

Lolo

Senior Member
Messages
306
Location
AUS
I found I had written down why I chose to buy potassium chloride was because it increases blood pressure and potassium gluconate lowers blood pressure and I tend to have low pressure and have experienced lower blood pressure from some herbal supplements years ago to the point that I stop taking them.
 

Mary

Moderator Resource
Messages
17,335
Location
Southern California
I found I had written down why I chose to buy potassium chloride was because it increases blood pressure and potassium gluconate lowers blood pressure and I tend to have low pressure and have experienced lower blood pressure from some herbal supplements years ago to the point that I stop taking them.

Actually potassium chloride can lower blood pressure too. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1627756

Actually I think any form of potassium can lower BP. You may need to add in salt if your BP is too low. Lots of people here do, take salt, you might try posting a question about.
 

Lolo

Senior Member
Messages
306
Location
AUS
Thanks for the clarification Mary. Yes I have been taking salt for low blood pressure. It seems its a matter of getting the ratio correct. I am feeling a bit better after the potassium loading yesterday. Sometimes the problem is I am too fatigued to eat much, so low potassium input is the result.
 

Jigsaw

Senior Member
Messages
420
Location
UK
I would suggest that you have some potassium gluconate at hand. The dropping of potassium is directly related to getting active b12 folate levels up. The severity will vary depending upon how deplete you were. It also depends upon how much potassium you already have in your diet and also how much sodium.

I am lucky in a way that I have a recognisable symptom of heart palpitations so I know when my potassium is low. For the first few months I monitored my symptoms and adjusted my dose of potassium. I ended up with 3x 200mg potassium gluconate spread across the day (first thing in the morning, lunchtime and before bed). I know that I still need this every day since I get mild symptoms after getting up out of bed.

In answer to your question no there is no loading before taking b12 but you need to take an appropriate dose while you take it if there isn't enough in your normal diet. We use a lot of potassium in the body in conjunction with sodium for all our cells so this needs to be replenished every day.

@arewenearlythereyet

Hi,

Any objection to potassium chloride? I use the bottles of Now powder.

The 99mg per tablet/ capsule thing is an American law that says anything higher than 99mgs is dangerous and could lead to hyperkalaemia - utter rot when you know that their Nu-Salt and Lo-Salt products contain (from memory) around 600mg per serving, and anyway, it's reducing or cutting out sodium that causes the majority of cardiac events via hyperkalaemia (the human body doesn't register a tual quantities of nutrients, hormones, etc, it only registers RELATIVE imbalances, so even with a tiny amount of potassium going in, if there's no sodium to balance it out, you could still suffer arrhythmias or worse.)

The no or low salt recommendation is, IMHO, one of the most damaging recommendations made by modern medicine in the last 25 or so years. That and the low/ no fat one. You need cholesterol for cells and hormones.

As you say, the RDA for potassium is c.4700mg a day, and it's plentiful in foods. If it was potentially dangerous to us, logically it wouldn't be so abundant in such a wide range of foods.

The reason potassium is so rapidly depleted when methylation blocks start to lift and new cells start to be made is that new cells are very potassium-hungry. They can't mature without it.

The balance between sodium and potassium is absolutely critical to human health. If you want salt, or crave salt, it's your body telling you it needs it to maintain that balance. My poor adrenal function means I kick out more sodium than is healthy for me, and before my adrenals were treated with hydrocortisone, I regularly used to eat salt neat. About 2-3 teaspoonsful at a time.

Even though my sodium levels remain on the very low end of normal, I still take c.600mg potassium chloride every day, sometimes twice a day, depending on what my body is telling me. Sometimes I want extra salt on my food, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I want extra potassium, sometimes I don't. It's all very fluid, based on what my body is telling me.

Unless you eat a diet that is exclusively made up of unprocessed, unpackaged and organic foods and drinks, you will get significant quantities of unseen sodium in your foods etc. Check your labels.

Low potassium does indeed make you feel like rubbish. Very tired, floppy, weak, moody, miserable and depressed. If you're on any loop-diuretics, like Frusemide (I think it's called Furosemide these days), you definitely need extra potassium, because loop-diuretics make the kidneys kick out large amounts of it. Other diruetics like spironolactone do not do that. I've been through this myself (see my intro post).

Blood tests almost never accurately reflect what is getting into the cells, because they can only show what's sitting in your bloodstream and not your tissue and organ cells. Blood is just a transporter. The nutrients still have to be effectively delivered from the bloodstream and into the cells to be of any use.

It's like looking at motorway traffic and service stations, with the traffic, drivers and passengers being the nutrient carriers and nutrients, the motorways being your veins, and the services being your cells. Doesn't matter how heavy the traffic is, if it isn't leaving the motorway and entering the service stations, your nutrients aren't being delivered. Traffic has to pull off the motorway and enter the services to do any good. More than that, the people in the vehicles have to get out of their cars, trucks, vans, lorries, etc, and actually go inside the services themselves.

With many of us having receptor difficulties, meaning in this analogy that the traffic is pulling into the services but no-one is getting out of the cars and going inside the buildings, or that the service station doors are locked and no-one can get in, high bloodtest values can give an extremely misleading picture of what appears to be excessively high levels of nutrients that we are actually functionally deficient in.

Low bloodtest values always make me think there isn't enough traffic on my motorways, and I interpret that as being unarguably deficient. My cells' demands are obviously higher than my nutrient traffic when I get a low, low-normal result back. Not even the NHS can disagree with that :)

It's unfortunate that the NHS doesn't do a fully comprehensive range of nutrient testing anymore. I get my potassium, sodium, magnesium, D3, calcium, iron, folate and B12 checked often enough (I take D3 and they all panicked that I'd go D toxic on it, but after two years of monthly testing, they finally conceded that my K2 was indeed stopping excess calcium from collecting in my blood, and had also reversed my osteoporosis by the same mechanism, so they eventually gave up sticking needles in me every for weeks), but there are no other B vit tests or other nutrient tests that I've been able to get done. I can't afford a private panel.
 
Messages
1,478
Any objection to potassium chloride? I use the bottles of Now powder.
There's no difference between forms or potassium from the body's point of view since it is quickly dissociated into potassium ions and passes rapidly into the bloodstream. You are right, potassium sodium balance is key for all the cells in the body. The theory of why PWCFS have such a high and constant demand is a bit murky mainly because there is no end to end theory just yet. This is a phenomenon seen in people with pernicious anaemia when treated with B12\folate but is mainly to do with red blood cell production and is relatively short-lived compared to CFS. It must be something to do with cell activity as you suggest but exactly what is going on and how we should deal with it is still a bit of a mystery.

I have recently converted to potassium chloride to save money and see no noticeable difference. Potassium gluconate seems to be tamer from peoples experience though. I was aware of the USA rules for 99g which I agree seems a bit strange considering sodium consumption etc.

Blood tests for B12 etc are notoriously inaccurate so I haven't bothered since I started supplementing. I'm just going by what feels right. I've paid for an OAT test post supplementing and this has shown that I'm pretty much on track with what I'm taking. As I mentioned my heart palpitations are a really clear sign for me and my daily dose seems really stable with this regard.

The problem really is that everything makes you feel tired if you don't get it right. I've sort of learned to attribute some symptoms to specific deficiencies (heart palpitations for potassium, waves of nausea for folate, emotional frustration, concentration issues with B12 etc.). I also liaise with a PHD expert in B12 who supplies my trans-dermal oil who has been a great help.
Unless you eat a diet that is exclusively made up of unprocessed, unpackaged and organic foods and drinks, you will get significant quantities of unseen sodium in your foods etc. Check your labels.
I do eat quite healthily and work in the food industry so always check my labels, but agree eating less processed food and processed eating out (MacDonalds, KFC, Pub chains etc) will bring sodium down generally.

I've started introducing potato crisps as a potassium and sodium top up though...buying multipacks stops me scoffing too much.:)

Sounds like your GP is more accommodating than mine, but I'm not sure he will do an OAT test for you:(
 

Jo86

Senior Member
Messages
197
Location
France
Say, I'm still looking for high sources of potassium in supplements. I ordered a bag of powder of K Chloride so that's on its way. V8 isn't available here (or very expensive). But someone elsewhere suggested just getting LoSalt, it's 66% Potassium Chloride + 33% Sodium Chloride. I'm guessing if I get that I'd use about 2 grams of it for lunch (and get about 1300 mg of K) and then again 2g in my plate for dinner (another 1300mg of K), would that be a good plan in your opinions ?