The girl doing it was very happy with my veins and had no trouble at all filling 3 vials in about 1.3 seconds. Go veins! It turns out that I have both Hypoglycemia and Hypokalemia. AKA low blood sugar and low blood potassium... I had VERY low blood potassium. Here are some symptoms of low blood potassium:
Usually symptoms of low potassium are mild. At times they can be vague. You may have more than one symptom involving the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, kidneys, muscles, heart, and nerves.
- Weakness, tiredness, or cramping in arm or leg muscles, sometimes severe enough to cause inability to move arms or legs due to weakness (much like a paralysis) yup...
- Tingling or numbness yup...
- Nausea or vomiting yup...
- Abdominal cramping, bloating don't think so...
- Constipation yup...
- Palpitations (feeling your heart beat irregularly) yup...
- Passing large amounts of urine or feeling very thirsty most of the time hello... 128 of water a day now...
- Fainting due to low blood pressure no fainting, but I sure have felt like I was going to
- Abnormal psychological behavior: depression, psychosis, delirium, confusion, or hallucinations. sort of... definitely some confusion lately haha
I told him I had no idea how I could have low potassium levels, I know I get more than enough potassium in my diet. He listed all these reasons besides diet that your potassium levels can be low... so, I don't know which of these side effects are from the t-max, or if that is what caused the low potassium in the first place. My grandma was diabetic so I have always tried to be semi careful about my sugar intake, try to eat a balanced diet, get enough protein blah blah blah.
Anyways, the Dr. wrote me a prescription for 1080mg of potassium citrate to take twice a day... for those of you not really familiar w/ potassium, most bananas have roughly 450 mg of potassium... so the supplements are for about 4 and a half banana's worth of potassium a day. There are much more potassium rich foods than banana's, but I digress.
I was almost a nutrition major. I am really interested in nutrition... I have had multiple multiple classes in it. Usually I am the first one to scoff at supplements and tell you that it would be easy to adjust your diet and give your body REAL nutrients, not "fake" ones in a pill. I am all about balanced meals and all that. Which is why it is so strange that at this point, I don't even care. I'll take the stupid pills and keep getting my blood tested and just see where it goes. I feel like I am secretly really stressed out about all my retarded health stuff and I just can't deal with it right now while I'm still in school. If I can get through May, I can go back to being myself and charting how many mg. of potassium I am eating a day, and how many mg. of sodium which affects your potassium levels and all that good stuff that most people don't even ask their doctor about.
With the very very very limited amount of free time I have right now during the week, and all my weekends being full as well, I really know that honestly I am not going to be able to invest enough time into meal planning and nutrition charting to make ME happy that I might as well skip it. Maybe I'm lazy. Who knows. I'll pop my pills and eat how I have been which I think is healthier than most people to begin with.
This is exactly the reason I didn't want to start going back to the doctor... it seems like if you have a problem, it can't be ONE problem, its this huge snowball effect. I needed relief from my migraines and now I apparently have a thyroid problem, need to go back on birth control with more estrogen, blood sugar issues, and low blood potassium. Hey, when I have my next appointment in a few weeks maybe they will find gangrene and that I'm going blind. Thanks medical community.
Then again, maybe I am too quick to criticize. Yes doctors tend to over diagnose and over prescribe, and it is true that a lot of things CAN be fixed with diet and exercise... but then again nothing that I have EVER tried (hormone treatments, allergy treatments, acupuncture, chiropractic treatments, massage treatments, special diets, different prescriptions that work differently) has done anything to alleviate any pain... so, maybe I really did have all of this underlying stuff that was more hormone and enzyme related and once it gets straightened out I will be fine. Yeah, doubtful but I do enjoy being the eternal optimist:)
Hope you are enjoying your Monday and I have some fabulous pics to post tonight!
3 comments:
I appreciate that you are the "eternal" optimist! :) Hope tomorrow is a better day!
FOund your blog while Googling "low potassium". Stephanie, have you been tested for Primary Hyperaldosteronism? Do you have high blood pressure, even a little bit high? PA is an endocrine imbalance caused by a benign tumor or hyperplasia of the adrenal glands. It oversecretes aldosterone. Too much aldosterone makes your body unable to retain potassium. Low potassium raises blood pressure. It can also mess with your insulin. I am currently undergoing confirmatory testing for PA. I have a tumor in one of my adrenals and they think it's the cause of the low potassium/low BP I have had for 6 years -- but my doctor never put 2+2 together. Google "hyperaldosteronism" or "primary aldosteronism" and see if the symptoms fit your situation. Good luck, Emily
oh geeze I hope thats not it!!! I actually have really good blood pressure. interesting though, I have never heard of it, I'll google it!
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