Hey folks, I'm back on my shit again. I was in the hospital for the past two days for extremely excessive amounts of potassium in my bloodstream. Like, normal scale is between 2.5 and 5.5, and I was at 7.5 when I went in on Wednesday.

New kidney doc got my blood work back and was like "You need to go to the hospital now and get this handled".

I know why this happened: When I was admitted for BP problems last year, they said I had very low potassium. So my medication included potassium supplements, and a potassium-sparing diuretic.

Turns out, between life style changes and losing so much weight in a short period, I was taking too much medication.

This was why my BP was so low, and is the root cause behind the excessive potassium.

They flooded me with Dextrose, Albuterol, and other dieuretics to get me back into normal ranges, and observed me.

The difficult thing is, spironolactone, the potassium-sparing diuretic, has a long half-life in the body. Like, aboug a week or so. So that's why it took two days to get shit back in order.

I didn't really know that excessive potassium can cause so many problems, nor did I know that albuterol can be used to help remove potassium before this.

Really thankful that I got a kidney doctor that gave a shit, and told me up front to get to the hospital.

I'm feeling the best I have in weeks, and I'm hoping it stays that way. Sucks ass that this happened during my staycation, but the alternatives aren't much better.

Cheers, and happy Easter.

@da_667 "swung the pendulum too far" moment, glad you're feeling better.
@prettygood "too much potassium can lead to tired muscles that lock up too frequently" was like "Yup.. that's me."

@da_667 @prettygood

Hyperkalemia aka high potassium can be extremely serious.

TMI, but my partially estranged father did not manage his kidney disease, diabetes, or any of his other conditions appropriately. In fact, he skipped two dialysis appointments and went into cardiac arrest twice due to hyperkalemia. (Potassium chloride is one of the medications used in a lethal injection).

For reasons unknown, they "saved" him, then spent months cycling through ICU, reg hospital, long term acute care hospital, back to ICU, ... repeat. This went on for 11 months then he went home for two months before ending up back in the hospital and dying.

@haicen @prettygood same on my side. I had an aunt who ended up with CKD, in the same straits. Drank, Smoked, didn't make any dietary changes, missed dialysis. She went downhill very fast.

One minute, she's on dialysis, the next, she loses her leg due to severe infection and lack of bloodflow. the next minute she had covid. The next minute she was just gone.

Which is why when I got diagnosed I was fucking terrified

@da_667 @prettygood

Yeah, sorry to hear that. The main thing is just following the treatment plan.