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W, please post the following to the list if you would:
Being VERY low on potassium is a dangerous thing. Besides sodium, it is
the second positive ion in the body and extremely important for many of
the vital organs.
In 1997 when I got bronchitis. because I had such a hard time coughing
.I was using my albuterol inhaler many many times a day. I finally had
to go to the emergency room to get an x-ray to rule out and ammonia. As
I was in the x-ray room. a nurse came running in with two of the biggest
pills I had ever seen in my life (and by then I had seen plenty) saying
that I had to take them right away. I asked her why and she told me
that my blood work had just come back and I was very low on potassium.
I guess it scares them so much that they could not even wait until the
x-ray was finished!
On another potassium related topic. I just had the strangest thing
happen to me less than a year ago. I had been battling constant urinary
tract infections for years and finally had some big boulders removed
from the bladder itself a year ago this past May. My doctor and I
thought that would solve the problem. Unfortunately, I kept having
chronic UTIs.
Someone here had suggested the medication "Mandelamine" (I think it was)
as sort of a prophylactic against UTIs. Anyway, one day my husband and
I were reading about the medication on one particular site and on that
one site. a paragraph glared at us. It said that one could not take
this medication if they could not get their urine pH to stay at a 6 or
lower. More acidic in other words. Up till then I could not get my
urine pH at that ideal number by trying cranberry juice, cranberry
supplements, etc. etc. to get it that way. The more acidic the urine.
the last chance for bugs to grow. I have always known that.
Anyway, I had been eating a banana every single day for a long long
time. My husband boinked himself on the forehead with the palm of his
hand as he read that paragraph. To make a long story short. I stopped
eating the bananas and I have not had a bladder infection since! Along
with keeping my urine Ph around the ideal number 6.
Who would ever have thought that too many bananas could contribute to
increased bladder infections? But, when you do some in-depth reading
about potassium. it talks a lot about potassium and the role it plays
with kidney function, etc. etc. I told my urologist and she was also
glad that we found an answer to my problem that had plagued me for
almost 7 years.
That is the second time that the Internet has helped me more than
greatly when even the doctors were without answers. I love the program
"Mystery Diagnosis" on the Discovery Health Channel. It portrays what
had happened to me so many times over the years. having all kinds of
symptoms and the doctors can help you either because of laziness or
incompetence.
"The more you know." :-)
Lori Michaelson
C4/5 complete quad, 27 years post
Tucson, AZ
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, September 07, 2007 6:15 PM
To: quad-list@eskimo.com
Subject: [QUAD-L] Potassium
In a message dated 9/7/2007 4:49:19 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
W can you pass this on to the list for me?
Do any of you guys have low potassium? Every time I get a blood test it
reads lower. My doc just upped me to 60mg - 40 in the morning and 20 at
night.
Dan
I would suggest a monkey diet of a couple of bananas a day.
Best Wishes
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