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Low/High Potassium Symptoms

acrosstheveil

Senior Member
Messages
373
I have been on a b12/methylfolate protocol for a while now. I usually never go over 2mg of sublingual methylfolate a day. I take 5-10mg of sublingual methylcobalamin a day. And 6-9 mg of dibencozide a day.

I have done a lot of research on methylation but I am still unsure of what hypokalemia feels like. I've never really had much issues with passing out or anything like that. Maybe my body is good on potassium?

The reason I ask is because I want to start taking a lot more methylfolate daily. I think it may help correct my food intolerances and leaky gut issues (endothelial?). I read a post by Freddd saying to try 4mg of methylfolate and see how you feel. I took 4mg of methylfolate a couple hours ago and I feel pretty tense and rigid. Are these low potassium symptoms? I took a gram of potassium chloride and I think it may have helped a tiny, tiny bit but the effect was barely noticeable.

My #1 goal is to fix my leaky gut issues so I stop having terrible reactions to everything. I have tried l-glutamine and all the recommened things for leaky gut but it just does not help enough. Maybe I need to be taking 10+ mg of methylfolate a day in order to correct this. I'm assuming I'm going to need to supplement potassium if I go up that high but I am totally lost at this point. I keep reading conflicting info on methylation...
 

Patrick*

Formerly PWCalvin
Messages
245
Location
California
I've had hypokalemia several times, as confirmed by labs, due to methylation protocols and possibly genetic predisposition. For me it comes with really bad brain fog, leg pain and numbness, and tachycardia.
 

Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
I have been on a b12/methylfolate protocol for a while now. I usually never go over 2mg of sublingual methylfolate a day. I take 5-10mg of sublingual methylcobalamin a day. And 6-9 mg of dibencozide a day.

I have done a lot of research on methylation but I am still unsure of what hypokalemia feels like. I've never really had much issues with passing out or anything like that. Maybe my body is good on potassium?

The reason I ask is because I want to start taking a lot more methylfolate daily. I think it may help correct my food intolerances and leaky gut issues (endothelial?). I read a post by Freddd saying to try 4mg of methylfolate and see how you feel. I took 4mg of methylfolate a couple hours ago and I feel pretty tense and rigid. Are these low potassium symptoms? I took a gram of potassium chloride and I think it may have helped a tiny, tiny bit but the effect was barely noticeable.

My #1 goal is to fix my leaky gut issues so I stop having terrible reactions to everything. I have tried l-glutamine and all the recommened things for leaky gut but it just does not help enough. Maybe I need to be taking 10+ mg of methylfolate a day in order to correct this. I'm assuming I'm going to need to supplement potassium if I go up that high but I am totally lost at this point. I keep reading conflicting info on methylation...


If you weren't already experiencing it then you may have indeed been good on potassium, though do be sure to pay attention when raising the doses higher.. If you were still in some form of methyl trap then the potassium demand would not have happened yet. If you did indeed have no methyl traps and with that high of doses then you would have felt the low potassium symptoms for sure by now. Perhaps you're demand for potassium is just lower then other's with the protocol.

When I went up to 10mg of the folate and had 10mg of b12, and adenob12 on top of it this is where the demand went insane, previous to that I never noticed it much.. Perhaps I believe I was in paradoxical folate deficiency and bumping the folate and b12 up higher is what finally brought me out, I did not consume or use any methyl traps like folic acid, whey, glutathione supplements, or NAC. I also over did the methylation without having sufficient P5P supplemented, this caused excessive methionine without any place to break it down the the essential nutrients needed by cells from the P5P(vitamin b6) That is something which can be just as toxic as folate deficiency so be sure to cover all your bases..

I finally got a 23andME test done as well, I think it is pretty important to find out what your possible mutations are before jumping on any major methylation protocol.
 

Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
Also just out of curiosity does anyone know if potassium supplementation that exceed's or is around 3mg to 4mg a day combined with a very low sodium diet can cause hyponatremia (salt version of hypokalemia)? I know that dangerously low sodium levels is usually the result of over hydration, or extreme physical activity without replacing electrolytes like marathon running, but also wondered if this could be an issue?
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
@acrosstheveil For me, low potassium leads of breathlessness, heartbeat a bit racing, but more like it's pounding, light-headed. Something weird happens w/ my eyes when I'm really low K+, not so much my vision, but a wide-eyed startled feeling. I generally find I need more mg when I need extra K+. Either K+ or mg can lead to cramps, tho for me, cramps is generally mg.

@Martial, do you actually mean 3-4 mg? I'm typically taking about 3 gm AM/PM. I eat 1/2 teaspoon salt daily, never self-test positive for adding more or less. Certainly you need to have some sort of balance of salt/K+, I don't know the figures. cheers, ahmo
 
Last edited:

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
CORRECTION:redface: Oh dear, in my typically number illiteracy, I have mis-spoken. I'm going to try to find all the other places I've done this as well...

Not for the first time I've read the NOW K+ Gluconate label incorrectly. 3 gm is the amount of substance in the 1 tsp I frequently need when I've added folate. HOWEVER, that yields 540 mg potassium. The amount I'm generally needing in my AM/PM doses, aside from folate additions, is 800mg AM/PM. My bad.:whistle:
 

Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
@acrosstheveil For me, low potassium leads of breathlessness, heartbeat a bit racing, but more like it's pounding, light-headed. Something weird happens w/ my eyes when I'm really low K+, not so much my vision, but a wide-eyed startled feeling. I generally find I need more mg when I need extra K+. Either K+ or mg can lead to cramps, tho for me, cramps is generally mg.

@Martial, do you actually mean 3-4 mg? I'm typically taking about 3 gm AM/PM. I eat 1/2 teaspoon salt daily, never self-test positive for adding more or less. Certainly you need to have some sort of balance of salt/K+, I don't know the figures. cheers, ahmo

I don't know, whatever is the amount in say reference of a banana, or the amount specified in serving sizes for the potassium powder, I think it might be mg actually like you said. I try to take in 3mg but seem to need even more, gonna try bumping it up and see how I feel. Ahmo do you take other b vitamins to match the high folate and b12?
 

ahmo

Senior Member
Messages
4,805
Location
Northcoast NSW, Australia
@Martial I'm following Freddd's suggestion, taking a low B complex. I settled on Swanson's Ultra High-Bioavailability Formula. It's a 25mg B comp, I divide the caps into 2, taking 1 AM/midday. So that gives me 12 mg B1,2,5,6,biotin, 25mg 3, twice a day. It also has inositol. I take addtl biotin and inositol. V interested to note that my body wanted significantly more biotin while detoxxing. Also includes 400 mcg folate/day, adding to my total folate.

I used to take high doses of Bs, suggested for anxiety. I was thrilled when I went low dose to not only have a huge drop in K+ need, but once the extra sulfur load was gone, glitches in my shoulders released.;)