The Importance of Potassium

• Approximately one in five people hospitalized in the United States are found to be lacking in potassium levels (hypokalemic). It is a common malady that is responsible for a number of symptoms, including kidney, heart and muscular disorders and damage. Muscles need potassium to contract. Hypokalemics suffer from muscle weakness, as the cellular processes become impaired by having too little of the potassium mineral in the cells. Without enough potassium, the heart muscle cannot operate efficiently, and the blood pressure cannot regulate itself.
  
  

Treatment for Low Potassium Levels

• Avoid long or strenuous activities that cause you to sweat, which can deplete the body of potassium. Avoid taking water pills and certain supplements or laxatives that reduce the water levels in your body. Take a potassium supplement prescribed by your doctor. Liquid forms of potassium are preferable to pill form, as they are absorbed more readily into your bloodstream. If your potassium levels are extremely low, you may need to receive a potassium IV treatment at your local emergency room, where the absorption of the potassium can be monitored by a nurse. The treatment will need to be repeated every few hours until your levels have returned to normal, and you are out of danger of suffering a cardiac arrythmia or heart attack due to insufficiency.
  
  

Treatment for High Potassium Levels

• If you are suffering from high potassium levels, your doctor will want to remedy the situation as quickly as possible, due to the potential danger of a heart attack. To treat the high potassium levels on an emergency basis, you will receive an intravenous (IV) calcium drip, which will remedy the condition for up to one hour. You will need to follow up immediately with other treatments, including shots of glucose and insulin into your veins, sodium bicarbonate to force potassium back into your cells or water pills to help increase urination, cleansing the body of excess potassium. When other treatments have failed, dialysis, along with a low-potassium diet, may be used to reduce the amount of potassium in the body.
  
  

Low Potassium Diet

• Cut back on meats, vegetables, fruits, dairy products and nuts if you want to reduce the potassium levels in your diet. Limit your fruit and vegetable intake to four 1/2 cup servings per day and dairy intake to 1/2 cup a day. The average person should get 4000 mg of potassium in her daily diet, but if you are on a low-potassium diet, you should only receive about half that amount, or between 2000 to 4000 mg per day. Stay away from salt substitutes, which often combine sodium and potassium. Be sure to read the fine print on seasoning labels, as many seasonings also contain potassium.