One of many dis­co­ve­ries made by thy­roid patients is that “nor­mal” lab results don’t tell the whole story. And thy­roid and adre­nal patient advo­cate Vale­rie Tay­lor sure found out the hard way while dea­ling with wor­se­ning muscle spasms and weakness.

“I have been to at least 6 doc­tors over the past seven years and read thou­sands of web­si­tes, hun­ting for the cause of my severe muscle spasms”, explains Vale­rie. “They all ruled out potas­sium, a poten­tially likely cause,  because my serum lab result, 4.2, was right smack in the middle of the nor­mal range.”

So Vale­rie was for­ced to live with her wor­se­ning muscle issues– spasms, weak­ness and pain – because all labs were nor­mal and those that weren’t, didn’t per­tain.  Even her insulin-dependent Type 2 Dia­be­tes was well-controlled. And she knew it was all threa­te­ning to put her out of work as a pet groo­mer.  It was bleak.

But a sur­pri­sing change was to come.

“About 2 months ago,” says Vale­rie, “someone on one of my groups men­tio­ned potas­sium hel­ping with fluid reten­tion – the lat­ter I’ve had for the last 15 years and took  Dya­zide, a potas­sium spa­ring diu­re­tic.”

She also lear­ned about get­ting an RBC (red blood cell) potas­sium lab as it shows what’s inside the cells rather than in serum (as usual labs show).  And the results? It came back LOW.

Vale­rie has since wor­ked her way up to 2850 mg. Potas­sium in a combo of chlo­ride and gluconate…and below, in her own words, are the results:

• No more muscle spasms and the weak­ness and pain is lea­ving more daily!
• My IBS sud­denly STOPPED!
• My insu­lin needs are HALF what they were before this sup­ple­ment, and blood pres­sure & pulse are both down.
• ALL fluid reten­tion is gone! I drop­ped 18 pounds the first month in just fluid weight.

Vale­rie is currently wai­ting for lab results to see if she needs to adjust further.

She conc­lu­des: I have since lear­ned that being hypothy­roid cau­ses potas­sium los­ses, as does ANY ste­roid which I had been on for neces­sary adre­nal sup­port. Dia­be­tes with a low carb diet also pre­dis­po­ses us to lose intra­ce­llu­lar potas­sium into the serum which is pro­bably why my serum labs loo­ked nor­mal in the face of extreme shor­tage. I hope many will see this and at the very least get RBC potas­sium labs done and if you have high BP or fluid reten­tion, reach for potas­sium before a diuretic!

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Even without being ins­pi­red by Valerie’s dis­co­very, there is good research out there for eating potas­sium rich foods, or like Vale­rie, using sup­ple­men­ta­tion if your levels are low.  The LA Times repor­ted a study which sta­ted that con­su­ming twice as much potas­sium as sodium might halve your risk of dying from car­dio­vas­cu­lar disease,  sta­ted by epi­de­mio­lo­gist Paul Whel­ton, pre­si­dent and chief exe­cu­tive of the Loyola Uni­ver­sity Health Sys­tem in Chi­cago and one of the authors of the study.

Here’s a list of potas­sium rich foods: http://www.hoptechno.com/bookfoodsourceK.htm

Here’s a list of symp­toms of low potas­sium: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/signs-and-symptoms-of-low-potassium.html

And remem­ber: ask your doc­tor to do an Red Blood Cell Potas­sium lab rather than simply serum. And don’t go as high as Vale­rie with sup­ple­men­ta­tion unless you have proof of low potassium.

P.S. Mag­ne­sium helps pump sodium out of your cells, and potas­sium into the cells – a good rea­son to get mag­ne­sium tes­ted as well.

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*What is your expe­rience with the newly for­mu­la­ted Armour? Found a way to get around the pro­blems? Express your opi­nion in the May 7^th blog post!