low potassium

Hey All! Well Susan called and said my labs showed low potassium, so I have to start taking that as well as I had blood in my urine. No other symptoms though. Dr Smolik decided to wait on an antibiotic but when I went to the pharmacy to pick up the potassium, it was tablets. Hello I can't take thouse. I even asked Susan and she said tablets are hard enough on a regular person let alone a WLS patient. So liquid it is. Well the script that the pharmacy rec'd was for tablet so they have to contact the Dr back to get it in liquid. That was Friday and I am still waiting. In the meantime, what does low potassum mean? How should I feel? Would I notice? What else can I do? I can't eat bananas yet, still on broth, jello, refried beans, eggs and cottage cheese. I have also taken the step and put the scale away. I have been weiging once a day and watching the scale stay in the same spot since I got home form the hopsital. I will be 3 weeks out Tuesday. 17 pounds in 3 weeks. I have not cheated on what I am eating. I am getting all my water and proteiin in, walking almost a mile a day on the treadmill at 3% incline for 30 minutes at 3 mph. What else can I do? My caloric intake is ranging from 400-500 depending on the day.

Just a thought but I don't think you are eating enough! 400-500 calories is starvation mode and your body will try to hang on to every calorie it can. My surgeon's program has us at 900-1000 calories from the beginning. If you are drinking a lot, and not eating much, you can wash the electrolytes right out and since you aren't eating much, you aren't replacing them. As for the stall at 3 weeks, that's pretty common. Your body has to catch up sometime and 3 weeks seems to be the magic number. Check with your doc about how many calories you should be getting but I think you are pretty low and need more. Seems weird, doesn't it, that you have to eat more to lose? You have to be really careful about low potassium. You can have cramps from that as well as heart irregularities. You need to talk to your doc.

Hey Lisa, I'm having problems with low potassium too. I got readmitted to the hospital for tachycardia and low potassium when I was two weeks out. I've been on a potassium supplement ever since. I have no idea what caused it but I am slowly getting weaned off them. When I was discharged from the hospital I was taking 3 tablets per day. Then they decreased it down to 2 and just a couple of weeks ago I got decreased to 1 per day. My PCP says if I can get it up to 4.0 I can totally discontinue them. Mine are big horse pills but they dissolve in water. I use the little medicine cups I got at the hospital and dissolve the pill, scoop it out with a spoon and chase it with the medicine cup full of water. That's the only complication I've had and it's pretty minor.

Those potassium supplements should be disolved in a medicine cup full of water. It doesn't actually dissolve, but turns into what my pharmacist called a "slurry". It is kinda grainy and tastes salty. I had three or four go-arounds with low potassium. Potatoes are high in potassium, so as soon as you are allowed to eat them, try some mashed, and leave the skins on, just make sure you chew chew chew. Low potassium is normal. you are in "controlled malnutrition" right now. Don't be alarmed, just take the supplements. jean

Lisa, Check this to find foods high in potassium. They are listed from the highest to the lowest. The amount is on the far right. http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR17/wtrank/sr17w306.pdf By the way, I have to agree, 3 weeks is pretty normal for your first stall. Keep doing what you're doing & you'll be fine. Dixie

I guess I only had low potassium after having Salmonella poisoning and having diarrhea for a week, so I took the pills for 10 days twice a day and was back to normal. Ha, me normal.LOL. Now, that damn parathyroid hormone, if I could only get that to get down and stay down! Try having to choke down 5-6 Calcium pills a day. YUCK. but its coming down! Judi

Lisa, Hate to tell you this the liquid potassium is very gross....I took the potassium pills i just cut them in half and i did that when i was a month out of having gastric bypass and that was 3 yrs ago. I take tablets for everything i just cut them in half. I had to take 2 potassium pills 5 times a day for 10 days. Make sure if you get the liquid you have something to drink after wards cuz it is really gross.....Lynda