Confused about the amount of potassium to take, please help!

[gu3vara]

Hi,

I'm having severe cramping for a a fews days now and started taking potassium today. My blood potassium was on the low side of normal, around 4.0 fews weeks ago and symptoms worsened since.

Freddd says people typically need 2000-3000 mg potassium per day, is he talking about elementary potassium or the amount of potassium chloride/gluconate? It changes things a lot! Don't want to overdose on potassium obviously!

Thx for the help!

 

[Mary]

I'm not sure I understand your question. I've read that the RDA for potassium is 3000 - 4000 mg. a day - this is the total amount of potassium your body needs, not the amount you should take as a daily supplement. We do get a lot of potassium in our food (especially if we eat properly )

I've been taking 400 mg. (four 99 mg. capsules) of potassium gluconate daily for a couple of years (since starting Freddd's B12 protocol) with no problem, and it has helped me. My potassium was a little on the low side too, like you. The 400 mg. I take is roughly 10% of the RDA. After starting Freddd's B12 protocol, my potassium levels tanked - I had severe fatigue and lethargy - which went away when I started taking potassium. At the time I titrated up to 1000 mg. a day for several days, and the fatigue and lethargy went away. Then I gradually backed down to 400 mg. a day, which I continue to take. And I realized I had had that severe lethargy and fatigue before but had never known what caused it, just thought it was another weird CFS symptom.

Here's a link to a thread with more info from Freddd: http://forums.phoenixrising.me/inde...dosage-on-freddds-protocol.32005/#post-494124

And you can do a search at the top of the page for more posts by him re potassium -

Mary

 

[Martial]

I take about 3000mg supplemental potassium, in older times people took upwards of 10000mg with very low sodium do to the nature of their diet. talk to your doctor first but ideally 3000mg spread through out the day supplemented seems to help a lot.

 

[adreno]

Hi,

I'm having severe cramping for a a fews days now and started taking potassium today. My blood potassium was on the low side of normal, around 4.0 fews weeks ago and symptoms worsened since.

Freddd says people typically need 2000-3000 mg potassium per day, is he talking about elementary potassium or the amount of potassium chloride/gluconate? It changes things a lot! Don't want to overdose on potassium obviously!

Thx for the help!

Elemental, always elemental.

 

[Martial]

Elemental, always elemental.

Whats the purpose of the elemental version? Never even seen it in supplemented form myself. Do you just mean the amount of actual Potassium subtracted from other ingredients? Like the pills usually state 99mg of potassium and the other 500 as a binder.

 

[adreno]

Do you just mean the amount of actual Potassium subtracted from other ingredients? Like the pills usually state 99mg of potassium and the other 500 as a binder.

Yes.

 

[gu3vara]

That's what I thought but wanted to make sure, thx! Elemental of course, not elementary! Brain fog....

 

[Bryce74]

Did you have a look at your diet?
It's better correcting your diet than taking potassium supplements.
With food, you should get around 4700 mg of potassium - many people are way too low in potassium.

http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/potassium/index.html#rda

Try to eat potassium rich food: http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/minerals/potassium/index.html#food_source