I need to know the dangers/complications that are possible if one has excess potassium in their system.?
Thursday, February 4th, 2010 at
3:13 PM
Is it possible that this "excess" of potassium could cause death? And if so, what would be your symptoms to look for?
Filed under: Potassium Side Effects
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People with excessive potassium, medical term as hyperkalemia, are usually asymptomatic. Some may suffer from vague non-specific symptoms, such as vague symptoms nausea, fatigue, muscle weakness, or tingling sensations. However, it is a potentially life-threatening illness that can lead to sudden death from cardiac arrhythmias and asystole in severe cases.
However, except in uncommon conditions (e.g. direct intravenous potassium injection, rhabdomyosis, tumor lysis of lymphoma or other malignancy after chemotherapy), normal individual with NORMAL renal function (urine is the major source for potassium excretion) very rarely become hyperkalemic due to excessive ORAL intake. However, people with renal failure is restricted to limited amount of daily potassium intake.
Too much potassium can cause death! You should never take potassium supplements without a doctor’s prescription and should only try to get enough potassium from your diet. Bananas are a very good source. Too little potassium is very dangerous too. It is thought to be what triggered Terry Schiavo’s diet-caused stroke that eventually killed her. I will provide a valuable link below to Icare4u.com
Absolutely, too much can cause death! This is a reason a lot of renal (kidney) failure patients need dialysis. The kidneys help excrete potassium from you body, and dialysis is one way of getting rid of it. Too much potassium will basically lead to a cardiac arrhythmia and subsequent death. At our institution, the higher end of normal is about 5.2 mmol/L.