Mary
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@Rita1979 - I'd never heard of hypokalemic sensory overload before - that's a bit mind-blowing. So many people here have sensory overload and I'm now wondering if at least sometimes it may be due to hypokalemia. I have had the deadly fatigue with low potassium. It's different than any other kind of fatigue. But not the swollen face or paralysis, and now I mainly get muscle twitching, I think because my potassium just does not get as low as it used to, because I'm on top of it now that I know what's going on!Particularly the deadly tiredness I feel. Symptoms include swollen face and paralysis, muscle weakness and even ADHD-like.
I can't answer these questions for you, we're all different. The RDA for potassium is around 4700 mg. When I first learned about low potassium in 2010 after I started taking methylfolate, I titrated up to 1000 mg a day in divided doses over 2 or 3 days and that was the dose which caused my severe fatigue to abate. I think I probably took 200 mg 3 x a day, increasing till I got to 1000 mg. a day. some people need more, some need less. My suggestion is to go slowly and work up gradually to the dose that works for you, in divided doses. Our bodies have trouble processing a large amount all at once.Do you have any experience with respect to the dosage? How much is safe?
I would probably start with adding 1 g daily to my Mg-oxide solution. That should be safe? What about 3 g? How much can one safely exceed the RDA?
I take potassium 4 times a day, with each meal and before bed, and sometimes I even need to take it in the middle of the night. And I drink low-sodium V8 as well. Recently I increased my benfotiamine and CoQ10, and my need for potassium almost doubled to close to around 1800 mg- I'm pretty sure it had to do with either the extra benfotiamine or CoQ10, or both, although after a couple of weeks I'm finally getting back down to close to my original dose of potassium. You have to make sure you're okay on all your electrolytes too - sodium, magnesium, etc.