My Journey With Health And Fitness – Let’s Talk About Potassium

If you didn’t see my FB post today, yesterday I went a little over the top in terms of working out. The day started as usual with a bootcamp class followed by a 6.5km run and a 5km walk. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Next was the usual 10km walk, again same as every weekday right now. But then somehow I ramped it up and just kept doing walks. By the end of the day I hit 48k steps, 33km and burned 3,500 calories. I have no idea what made me do that but I did. Today I have ramped down to a 10km run followed by bootcamp and tomorrow I am definitely doing a recovery day (I will do a ‘gentle’ 5km walk). Here’s hoping I can have another day like yesterday next week.

If you recall a few weeks ago I had my annual physical which comes with a full panel of blood/urine tests. Everything came back perfectly normal except my potassium which was high. I had a hard time believing this because I follow a low potassium diet because of my brother, my kidney function is normal and I am extremely fit. My doctor assured me it was highly unlikely that I had high potassium and the negative result could be caused by a corrupted blood sample, being dehydrated due to working out so much, or the lab itself. She gave me a new requisition and suggested I have the test done at the hospital where they have a different testing apparatus. Well, I had the test done on Thursday and lo and behold my potassium levels are normal.

But why is this even important? Potassium does things like moves nutrients into and waste out of your cells as well as it helps your heart function. High potassium can be caused by various health issues such as kidney disease, high blood pressure and diabetic ketoacidosis. It can also be an indication of kidney disease, Addison’s disease as well as Type 1 diabetes. But there is even more. Extreme amounts of potassium can actually cause your heart to stop completely, a problem that my brother lives with.

Having said all of that, low potassium can also cause health issues. Ironically low potassium can apparently be caused by the same things as high potassium. It also comes with the risk of causing heart issues. Moreover, it can make muscles feel weak, twitch, cramp or even become paralyzed.

Because (as I like to refer to myself) I am kind of diabetic (did I mention without medication my blood glucose has now been normal for 3 years?) my doctor has a massive list of blood/urine tests that she does annually. Something I like to do is compare how all of these tests have changed over the past few years. I will admit with the potassium issue cleared up this is the first time since receiving the diabetes diagnosis in 2018 that all of my results have been in the normal range. Ok, I admit some that were out of the appropriate range were really minor and as my doctor likes to tell me when I question them she will let me know if I should be concerned.

I think what I ultimately want to get across in this post is I am fortunately to have a doctor that does things like puts me through a pretty thorough series of blood/urine tests each year. Yes, because I am a bit crazy I obsess over any abnormal results but you know what, those results allow me the ability to, where necessary, make more lifestyle changes to keep myself healthy.