I had my vitamin D levels checked a couple years ago, and it was around 50 or so. Despite this, I started a vitamin D supplment, which is 5,000 I.U. once daily. Its over the counter, the strongest I can find. I've heard so much about vitamin D deficiency, that I felt it couldn't hurt anything to take it. :-)

My endocrinologist is concerned I may have hyperaldosteronism (this causes hypertension and low potassium). He's wants to wean me off of triamterene/hctz and repeat the bloodwork 6 weeks later to ensure the med isn't interfering with the results. We're waiting until January to wean off, though.

I have started adding more potassium rich foods into my diet in addition to the potassium supplements I am taking. I have been eating bananas like crazy and it didn't seem to do any good, but recently started drinking more orange juice. Something has changed, because I am feeling alot better. Around the same time I started drinking more OJ, I was told I have mild hypothyroidism, too. So I am not sure if I'm feeling better due to the rise of my potassium or due to the levothyroxine for the thyroid. Either way, I am not achy, I have a bit more energy, and generally feel better. :-) Its great to not ache for once! I didn't realize how bad I felt, until I started feeling good! :-)

How come nobody on this thread mentions use of NoSalt or AlsoSalt? It's table salt made with potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, you can buy it at any Safeway store.

Thank you, Big Sur, I hadn't really thought about it. My endo didn't suggest this either, so I guess he didn't think about it, either. We had brainstormed together over what foods are potassium rich and how to get more into my diet. Thank you for mentioning it!

AlsoSalt contains 356 mg potassium and 0 mg sodium per 1/4 tsp.
NoSalt contains 650 mg potassium and 0 mg sodium per 1/4 tsp.
Not to mention 0 calories, if you're counting.
Potassium pills are limited by law to 99 mg. Why? I found this:

>>>The potassium in health food store pills is limited to less than
100 mg by law. The basic reason is that high concentrations of
potassium, such as might be present in a bigger rapid release pill, can kill cells and cause tissue necrosis. Part of the intestine then gets a hole in it, and that causes big problems. The prescription drugs are rigorously formulated to be slow release, so that doesn't happen.... ... the FDA here isn't being quite as dumb
as they look. If you make a potassium pill badly, out of the pure
salt, as the pill sits up against the bowel wall it can release enough
potassium to raise the concentration in that small area enough to kill tissue. So you get a bowel wall infarction, rupture, and hell to pay. The FDA doesn't let people sell potassium pills of high strength willy nilly precisely because it takes a pretty high tech system to make sure potassium leaches out of some matrix slowly enough to ensure this concentration tissue killing doesn't happen--- and the FDA can't police every supplement manufacturer making these things on a non-presciption basis. I surely know a few supplement makers I wouldn't trust to make an 800 mg potassium pill. Needless to say, the problem doesn't arise with potassium disolved in water, or in juices, or with potassium in fruit (which has its own complex slow-K delivery system all in place already).
The ONLY reason why health food stores can't sell pills with more than 99 mg is that when KCl as a solid contacts tissue, it can raise K levels high enough to cause tissue death, and people have gotten holes in their intestines from pills which just contained a slug of KCl. So solutions of hundreds of milligrams of K are safe (indeed as safe as milk or juice) but pills containing that much aren't safe unless they have a fairly complicated slow release system to keep the K levels next to your gut tissue down. A raisin can be thought of as such a system. As can any of the prescription pills with hundred so milligrams. But not any of the pills you can buy without
prescription. Steve Harris, M.D.

Yup, prescription tablets are either slow-release or soluble.

There are plenty of foods high in potassium, some are richer than bananas, for example dried apricots. Also, chick peas, gram flour, orange juice, milk, yogurt, potatoes, tomatoes...

It is always better to get your potassium from natural sources if you can, better still if you can take it in the form of foods you like.

John

How does a meq equate to a mg? I've always wondered why potassium is measured in meq's instead of mg's, when prescribed. My rx seems to be quite soluble, but its not a slow-release. It almost disolves as I'm trying to choke the huge thing down. I'm on 20 meq, three times daily. Thanks! Melanie

Here I am, several months later, back mulling the same question from a different angle....

I am off potassium supplements, off the plain thiazides, and I had tried amlodipine as an add-on but after two months this had little or no effect on BP. (Potassium levels fine though!) So I have just begun a combination of amiloride (2.5mg), which is a potassium-sparing diuretic, and hydrocholorothiazide (25mg) - trade name is Moduret here. Within a day or so, my blood pressure came down (it had been 160/100 at the doctor's last Friday, down to around 135/90 after starting the new pill).

In two weeks I will have a blood test to check that my potassium has not dropped too low (due to the hydrochlorothiazide) nor gone too high (due to the combination of amiloride and candesartan). Hyperkalaemia (too high potassium) can be quite dangerous.

Naturally I have to wait and see also if the BP lowering is sustained, and if I can cope with any ongoing side effects.

John

just to add my bit. I tried the diuretic and by second day was really ill. I was off it for a week then tried it again (thinking maybe i get used to it as it seemed to work with bp lowering) but the same thing happened again, feeling really very ill. Now i take the ccb 1/2 5mg at 9:00 pm and diovans during the day.

Shirley

Do you mind me asking diuretic(s) you had? I have tried several up to now. This one (or should I say two in one) appears to be working, with tolerable side effects so far. I am only on day three though!

I never did find a calcium channel blocker I could get on with, and their effects seem pretty limited on me, even in combination with other drugs.

John