Managing Potassium Deficiency - Share your experience

[NilaJones]

Thanks, Freddd.

What it is, I get potassium almost completely from foods, and I eat most of it between 2-7pm, mainly 4-6:30. And my theoretically-potassium-related symptoms are leg pains of various sorts, that often wake me up around 6 am (though anytime 3-7, and once at 2 when it was really bad -- the night that led me to start the 'Ow!' thread).

So that's in the ballpark of 14 hours, but could also be accounted for by being still and sleeping for 6 hours or so previous.

As for insulin, I do not feel hungry when my leg pain wakes me up, and I have to force myself to eat a banana if I conclude I need one. I do that plus take a potassium pill -- the pill alone hurts my stomach. Normally I don't eat until fruit at noon, and no carbs/protein till 4ish. I couldn't tell you if I have other LSB symptoms like spaciness when my legs wake me up, because sleepy . I do not feel grouchy, though.

 

[L'engle]

I overdid it and I'm in high potassium now for the last week or more. I feel worse when I eat foods with potassium in them and it is honestly hard to get out of this because most healthy food supplies significant potassium. I had a vascular headache that was not quite a migraine today but still debilitating.

So just to let people know if you get into high dose potassium as a habit that high potassium can sneak up on you. It feels gross. Weak, bad blood vessel feelings, sick. I may have to do a nutrient specific fast tomorrow and avoid foods with potassium.

 

[Freddd]

Thanks, Freddd.

What it is, I get potassium almost completely from foods, and I eat most of it between 2-7pm, mainly 4-6:30. And my theoretically-potassium-related symptoms are leg pains of various sorts, that often wake me up around 6 am (though anytime 3-7, and once at 2 when it was really bad -- the night that led me to start the 'Ow!' thread).

So that's in the ballpark of 14 hours, but could also be accounted for by being still and sleeping for 6 hours or so previous.

As for insulin, I do not feel hungry when my leg pain wakes me up, and I have to force myself to eat a banana if I conclude I need one. I do that plus take a potassium pill -- the pill alone hurts my stomach. Normally I don't eat until fruit at noon, and no carbs/protein till 4ish. I couldn't tell you if I have other LSB symptoms like spaciness when my legs wake me up, because sleepy . I do not feel grouchy, though.

Hi Nila,

All I know is I would be in trouble, bad trouble on the kind of schedule your are on. When I was a young teen I started waking up screaming with intense leg spasms around 6 am. That is around the time I wake up these days with such spasms if I don't take a bedtime dose of potassium, 300mg. It has taken me a long tome to learn to manage these things.

 

[zzz0r]

Hi Nila,

All I know is I would be in trouble, bad trouble on the kind of schedule your are on. When I was a young teen I started waking up screaming with intense leg spasms around 6 am. That is around the time I wake up these days with such spasms if I don't take a bedtime dose of potassium, 300mg. It has taken me a long tome to learn to manage these things.

@Freddd how do you relate potassium witn insulin ( is that also related with sugar cravings ? ) please explain

 

[NilaJones]

Hi Nila,

All I know is I would be in trouble, bad trouble on the kind of schedule your are on. When I was a young teen I started waking up screaming with intense leg spasms around 6 am. That is around the time I wake up these days with such spasms if I don't take a bedtime dose of potassium, 300mg. It has taken me a long tome to learn to manage these things.

Would you clarify what aspect of my schedule would cause you problems? 'Cause I sure have problems, whether it's potassium or something else.

I eat high potassium foods every hour or two throughout the day, the whole time I am out of bed. But I am only out of bed about 9 hours.

 

[Freddd]

@Freddd how do you relate potassium witn insulin ( is that also related with sugar cravings ? ) please explain

I don't have any insulin problems. This all comes from incidental reading. Insulin has something to do with causing potassium to rapidly transfer from serum, where it is easily available into the tissues. Insulin gets triggered by the nutrient absorption process. When it get's triggered, blood sugar can fall. Some folks get into rather extreme sugar/insulin cycles and maybe that also can trigger sudden unavailability of potassium (pure speculation). This is just a speculation about a possible connection. I haven't gone looking for it and haven't read anything specific about it. It's just some associative thinking of things seen in passing.

 

[Freddd]

Would you clarify what aspect of my schedule would cause you problems? 'Cause I sure have problems, whether it's potassium or something else.

I eat high potassium foods every hour or two throughout the day, the whole time I am out of bed. But I am only out of bed about 9 hours.

What it is, I get potassium almost completely from foods, and I eat most of it between 2-7pm, mainly 4-6:30. And my theoretically-potassium-related symptoms are leg pains of various sorts, that often wake me up around 6 am (though anytime 3-7, and once at 2 when it was really bad -- the night that led me to start the 'Ow!' thread).

People who can get enough potassium from food alone for healing are very rare and includes me. I eat 1500 calories a day, not anywhere near enough to have even minimum required potassium. Then to have it most in a 5 hour period can't keep it in serum long enough.

 

[NilaJones]

People who can get enough potassium from food alone for healing are very rare and includes me. I eat 1500 calories a day, not anywhere near enough to have even minimum required potassium. Then to have it most in a 5 hour period can't keep it in serum long enough.

Ok. I do find that, even on a diet consisting 100% of things I eat for medical reasons, mostly for high potassium content, I am some days eating more calories than I really want, just to get the potassium. Am getting rather plump.

Is there any method for making the supplements more gut-tolerable? I tried dissolving gluconate in water and drinking it in many little bits throughout the day (maybe 50mg at a time. Result: continuous nausea all day, plus diarrhea.

Otherwise, I take it soaks are the only option?

 

[L'engle]

@NilaJones

Some things that are high in potassium that I find help:

Cocoa powder
Ginger
Ceylon cinnamon (non-toxic, unlike normal cinnamon)
Green stevia powder

I was up to having 4 tbsp a day of cocoa powder mixed with half rice milk and half water. This gave me quite a bit of potassium, but also lots of caffeine and sugar from the rice milk. Unfortunately stevia and cocoa I find do aggravate my stomach though less so than the supplements. Chewing on a piece of raw ginger gives a lot of potassium if you can stand it.

@Freddd. If potassium is mostly lost in 5 hours that explains why I can't sleep longer than that at a stretch anymore. I have to get up and eat and drink something then have the rest of my sleep.


My avoidance of potassium today alleviated my high potassium symptoms somewhat. I'm going to keep on another day oir two until back to normal.

I'm also managing low magnesium right now which seems to happen from taking vitamin d. This magnesium loss is much the same as the potassium just with different symptoms and needing magnesium supplements.

Never thought mineral balance would be this complicated.

 

[NilaJones]

@NilaJones

Some things that are high in potassium that I find help:

Cocoa powder
Ginger
Ceylon cinnamon (non-toxic, unlike normal cinnamon)
Green stevia powder

I was up to having 4 tbsp a day of cocoa powder mixed with half rice milk and half water. This gave me quite a bit of potassium, but also lots of caffeine and sugar from the rice milk. Unfortunately stevia and cocoa I find do aggravate my stomach though less so than the supplements. Chewing on a piece of raw ginger gives a lot of potassium if you can stand it.

@Freddd. If potassium is mostly lost in 5 hours that explains why I can't sleep longer than that at a stretch anymore. I have to get up and eat and drink something then have the rest of my sleep.


My avoidance of potassium today alleviated my high potassium symptoms somewhat. I'm going to keep on another day oir two until back to normal.

I'm also managing low magnesium right now which seems to happen from taking vitamin d. This magnesium loss is much the same as the potassium just with different symptoms and needing magnesium supplements.

Never thought mineral balance would be this complicated.

Inorite?!

I take tons of vitamin D... I guess that is another clue that I should work harder at getting magnesium.

I can't handle caffiene, am allergic to ginger, stevia sounds like an irritant -- I guess that leaves ceylon cinnamon to try . Thank you!

 

[Freddd]

@NilaJones

Some things that are high in potassium that I find help:

Cocoa powder
Ginger
Ceylon cinnamon (non-toxic, unlike normal cinnamon)
Green stevia powder

I was up to having 4 tbsp a day of cocoa powder mixed with half rice milk and half water. This gave me quite a bit of potassium, but also lots of caffeine and sugar from the rice milk. Unfortunately stevia and cocoa I find do aggravate my stomach though less so than the supplements. Chewing on a piece of raw ginger gives a lot of potassium if you can stand it.

@Freddd. If potassium is mostly lost in 5 hours that explains why I can't sleep longer than that at a stretch anymore. I have to get up and eat and drink something then have the rest of my sleep.


My avoidance of potassium today alleviated my high potassium symptoms somewhat. I'm going to keep on another day oir two until back to normal.

I'm also managing low magnesium right now which seems to happen from taking vitamin d. This magnesium loss is much the same as the potassium just with different symptoms and needing magnesium supplements.

Never thought mineral balance would be this complicated.

Hi L'engle,

I wake up after 5 hours to go to the bathroom and often take another 3 tablets then to get me through the rest of the night. It is a rare night that I make it 7 hours without spasms without that second dose.

I never thought that mineral balance would be so complicated either. It's taken me 11 years to get to this, where the mineral balance is the biggest hinderance to keeping healing going. That's got to be progress of sorts. I've been peeling back layer after layer of problems. This goes back to youth only I never knew what it was then.

"Growing pains" is what the doctor called it then. A few years ago a study was done that found that "growing pains" as a child/teen was a predictor of FMS. Why is that no surprise?

 

[NilaJones]

I never thought that mineral balance would be so complicated either. It's taken me 11 years to get to this, where the mineral balance is the biggest hinderance to keeping healing going.

Is it still the same minerals, or new ones, after 11 years? Still potassium, magnesium, zinc, iron?

It meant a lot to me, to know that even after all your experience you still find mineral balance difficult. I feel a bit less like a clueless newbie -- maybe this stuff just IS difficult .

 

[L'engle]

Is it still the same minerals, or new ones, after 11 years? Still potassium, magnesium, zinc, iron?

It meant a lot to me, to know that even after all your experience you still find mineral balance difficult. I feel a bit less like a clueless newbie -- maybe this stuff just IS difficult .

@NilaJones. Yes, NJ it really is that difficult and complicated! Give yourself credit for all that you are learning and adapting to.

 

[NilaJones]

@NilaJones. Yes, NJ it really is that difficult and complicated! Give yourself credit for all that you are learning and adapting to.

Aw, thank you, L'engle .

It feels weird to be trying to learn when my brain is so messed up . It's way better than it was, but...

 

[Sushi]

Aw, thank you, L'engle .

It feels weird to be trying to learn when my brain is so messed up . It's way better than it was, but...

Don't forget to factor in sodium as it is related to the others in finding a balance.

Sushi

 

[NilaJones]

Don't forget to factor in sodium as it is related to the others in finding a balance.

Sushi

Thank you, Sushi! (How was your expedition??)

Sodium decreases potassium, right? I have been eating a lot less sodium in the current crisis, and I think it helps. What else does it interact with?

 

[Sushi]

Thank you, Sushi! (How was your expedition??)

Sodium decreases potassium, right? I have been eating a lot less sodium in the current crisis, and I think it helps. What else does it interact with?

I don't think you can just decrease one thing and increase another--you need to look at the whole picture. I don't have this kind of knowledge but you should be able to find guidelines for balancing minerals on the web. Just going by how you feel from day to day is not likely to give you enough overall information.

Sushi

 

[NilaJones]

I don't think you can just decrease one thing and increase another--you need to look at the whole picture. I don't have this kind of knowledge but you should be able to find guidelines for balancing minerals on the web. Just going by how you feel from day to day is not likely to give you enough overall information.

Sushi

Oh, dear.

I did some googling, but just found a bunch of stuff about how there really are no rules of thumb or starting points because individual metabolism, diet, etc., etc.

I did find out, tho, that the roughly 2:1 ration of oral mg to calcium I started with is apparently standard advice (but wrong because reasons). Which might mean that I should now take a bunch more calcium to balance all the topical magnesium...

It all seems to come down to the only good method is daily testing. Does anyone anywhere actually have access to that?

 

[Sushi]

Recommendations for the oral calcium/magnesium ratio used to be 2 to 1...(I think you have it backward from what I have read) however quite a few complementary (or whatever you want to call it!) medicine doctors have been recommending a 1 to 1 ratio or even higher levels of magnesium lately. http://www.acu-cell.com/mr.html

But of course there is a lot more to balancing your minerals than just these two. If you can get testing of your present levels, that of course is very helpful.

Sushi

 

[NilaJones]

Thanks, Sushi .

I just typed it backwards. I was taking 2calcium and 1mag. (Actually a bit more mag than that, but close.)

But I thought somebody here said lately that we should not take calcium at all?