Re: restless legs & pottasium

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Posted by Nicholas O. Lindan on April 28, 2001 at 12:51:03:
In Reply to: restless legs posted by Potassium Legs on April 16, 2001 at 04:48:52:
If pottasium (K) depletion causes RLS then the symptoms of K depletion should mimic those of RLS.
Seems logical.
Unfortunately, they don't. According to the Merk Manual, 16th ed. pg 1000, low K results in:
"Severe [low K] (<3 mEq/L) may produce muscular weekness and lead to paralysis and respiratory failure. Muscular malfunction may result in respiratory hypoventilation, paralytic ileus, hypotension, muscle twitches, tetany, and rhadomyolysis....
Cardiac effects are minimal until serum K levels are < 3 mEq/L except in patients with significant cardiac and/or those receiving digitalis."
So, by the time you get to the 'muscle twitching'
stage you are weak (paralysed), can't breath, heart is in trouble, guts have stopped working, blood presure is down, muscles may be twiching or spasmodic and muscle cells are wasting away after being converted to a rod-like form. Ugh.
Mild K deficiency can be caused by numerous factors. One of which is eating clay, an affectation of the very poor hill people in the south at the turn of the century who used it to drive away hunger. It may be that the pottasium defficiency and God knows what all caused by a diet of clay caused a form of RLS that could be alieveated by pottasium pills.
Another take on the cook-book's advice is that the pottasium being refered to was Pottasium Bromide. KBr was perscribed in the Old Days as a sleeping powder - this may alleviate RLS, but continued use of KBr results in a terrible case of acne.
So, not till it is noticed that everyone with RLS is, surprise, low on K and that lowering a person's K causes RLS, can one say that low K is the cause of RLS.
Low K is a common syndrome and the doctors and nurses are familiar with it. If every patient on a K drip had RLS it would be noticed (or at least so one would hope - figuring that many of the Docs and RNs have had a bout of RLS themselves).
And RLS, in me at least, comes and goes with the wind. If I went looking for cures and causes in the things I ate yesterday I would be batty with the conflicting results.
NIM - No Immediate Miracle

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