Potassium is the answer!

I work at a high stress job with irregular hours and I have been feeling kind of poorly lately so I consulted with my MD who had not a clue. After talking to a friendly nutritionist I realized that that I was suffering from potassium deficiency! Have any of you heard about that?

Not enough potassium can make you feel like a pile of #2 to put it mildly. Instead of grabbing potato chips I now grab for high potassium foods like oranges or banannas and let me tell you it really makes a difference.

I thought I better share this before any of you fall fatally ill from potassium deficiency.

I just ate two bananas today. They were overripe but better to have eaten them then let them go to waste. Thanks for sharing, it's important to be healthy and not have nutritional deficiencies. Also eat pomelos so you don't get scurvy.

Hmmm, I like bananas. I like honey roasted peanuts too, but they both make my stomach cramp like mad. Wonder if it's the potassium or something else. I can eat other peanuts without a problem. Just the honey roasted ones. I can't figure it out cuz honey roasted peanuts & bananas are a weird combo to be causing this.

Try blending it all up with some low fat yogurt, a little ice and a pinch of cinamon.

That sweet bug mucous you're eating is intended for larvae, not for people. Honey used to make my stomach cramp up in any form. Occasionally it still does, but I try to eat it at a minimum-- maple syrup is better. Try eating a spoonful of honey and see what happens.

Que? Or possibly K?

Skip the middle-man and eat the ash from your fireplace for increased potassium.

I would hazard that it is more likely that a banana is simply a higher quality food than a potato chip. Here's the guvmint's say on potassium. My guess is that you'd have to seriously work at it to become potassium deficient, but I never paid much attention to it.

Contrariwise, potassium and sodium are essential to proper neural function (foremost) and if you truly were potassium deficient, you'd feel pretty lousy. Stress in itself it a nasty beast, some joking call the primary hormone released under chronic stress (cortisol) to be a poison for all the damage it does. I'd attend to that first.

I used to be able to eat bananas. A few years ago, I started to notice that I got very bad acid indigestion after eating them. But, because I love bananas, I just blew it off and kept eating them. Last year, I ate a banana and within an hour, I was doubled over with stomach pain and other nasty symptoms. As I lay there, writhing in pain, I thought about my problems with indigestion after eating bananas and it suddenly dawned on me that I might be allergic to bananas. I got up and took 20 mg. of Pepcid...it worked within a half- hour, because in addition to being able to turn off the little acid pumps in your tummy, it's also an antihistamine that works on your intestinal tract. Needless to say, I don't eat bananas anymore. If you were allergic to peanuts, you'd have a much more severe/life threatening reaction than just stomach cramps, I think (but I could be wrong).

And more people have potassium deficiencies than you'd think. I have a prescription for K-Dur (a timed release form of potassium) 20 mEq. because my K+ (potassium) levels tend to run low normal to below normal. In my case, when my K+ level gets low, I get an irregular heartbeat. So, when my heart starts doing jumping jacks, I know it's time to take some K-Dur. Everyone's body is different and while the recommended daily requirements of K+ is probably within everyone's doing just by eating a balanced diet, some of us lose K+ at a faster rate than others.

Eating a K+ rich diet won't hurt you if you're a normal, healthy individual. In fact, it can help keep your blood pressure normal.