Causes of Low potassium??

So I had some blood work done everything checked out good, aside from my potassium levels being 1 point low, not sure what the one point is, but reading online normal levels are about 3.5-5.0mEq/L and 2.5mEq/L is at hypokalemia levels, looking at some of symptoms I have over the past month like weakness, fatigue, constipation, abdominal cramps, and maybe heart palpitations (whole reason for the seeing the doctor and testing) its fits the bill. However I think I can cross off the heart palpitations as I wore a Holter monitor for 24hrs and it came back good not irregular heart beats. Even though I get some kind of palpitation of a vein or tightness in my chest. This normally happens when I am sitting for long periods or after I eat, so possible stomach issue there, maybe heartburn and/or an issue with a muscle or rib in that area bruised it good last year tweaked it again a month ago. Or the last possible case is some thing with stress/anxiety going on for some time... Which I was prescribed Lexapro, did not fill it yet, remember seeing some threads on SSRI's being bad, still need to do some research.

I just started taking Ortho's Decalcify 2x a day and the IH recommend Magnesium/Potassium 2 caps once a day about 2 weeks ago. So why am I low in Potassium?? Before that I took Potassium Citrate 2x a day I don't remember the mg off the top of my head. Would a heavy metal detox cause this? I did it for a month, took a 2week break, then started back up cause read here should do it for 90 days, now finishing up another 30days. Or could the summer heat have some effect, working out doors in the heat sweating??

Depends on what is in your system. The things that makes you lose excessive potassium are:

- Excessive aldosterone levels(this is why spironolactone is potassium-sparing as it reduces aldosterone levels)
- Excessive sweating
- mercury
- sugar(and wheat in general)
- Coffee
- Salt

Lexipro should be avoided. It will elevate your risk of high prolactin (equals hair loss), diabetes/insulin resistance (hair loss), not to mention thyroid inhibition (hair loss).

TransGirl hit on some of the major ones.

Do you currently find yourself currently craving salty foods? (or at least have a preference for them)?

Bananas are a good source of potassium.

TransGirl wrote:Depends on what is in your system. The things that makes you lose excessive potassium are:

- Excessive aldosterone levels(this is why spironolactone is potassium-sparing as it reduces aldosterone levels)
- Excessive sweating
- mercury
- sugar(and wheat in general)
- Coffee
- Salt

Not sure on the aldosterone levels, what kind of test is used for this or is it specific just for aldosterone? Sweating could be part of it with the warmer temps and I work outside or in unconditioned spaces. Mercury again is maybe doubtful. My sugars if speaking sweets are kept to a minimum, I do eat fruits, sandwhich (whole wheat bread) for lunch, I eat Kashi cereals or mothers oats in the morning during the week and usually meat and something else on weekends. Dinners vary greatly, but usually meat, veggies and atleast 5 out of 7 are home cooked.

CausticSymmetry wrote:Lexipro should be avoided. It will elevate your risk of high prolactin (equals hair loss), diabetes/insulin resistance (hair loss), not to mention thyroid inhibition (hair loss).

TransGirl hit on some of the major ones.

Do you currently find yourself currently craving salty foods? (or at least have a preference for them)?

Like I said I did not fill the Lexapro, and really don't intend to, just took the script as an option while I was there.

I really cannot say I have a preference or craving salty foods, as I try to keep salt to a minimum, even when I cook at home which I do a lot of and I never salt my food on the plate. I can say if food is salty I can defiantly taste it. I will have to keep a watch for this. Can I be lacking in salt/sodium?

I also want to add I picked up my recent lab results where I came up 1 point low on potassium. I was 3.4 mmol/L on a scale of 3.5-5.5. The blood test was a non-fasting type, blood was drawn at 5:18pm, one thing noticed the chart was my Glucose was high 112 mg/dl on scale of 69-100 mg/dl. My last full meal that day was at noon, and I had a snack at around 3pm, how does the snack effect glucose? I would have to think back what I eat that lunch and my snack.

A couple other notes are my RBC was low 4.04 M/uL scaled 4.20-5.60. I did give blood maybe about 8 weeks ago. And my MCV and MCH was a touch high MCV 94.4 scaled 80-94 and MCH 33.7 scaled 27-33.

I don't know if any of this helps, I want to look things over more and find my blood results from last fall and compare a bit.

Not enough bananas and coconut water! hehe