Potassium - next in the list of components involved in a possible 'electrolyte crisis'

Health Warning: Please do not start taking Potassium unless you have permission from your physician.  This is a powerful nutritional supplement that can interfere with heart medication, among other things, and should be administered with caution!

Why I'm now taking Potassium

If you recall, when I began my research into the possible causes of migraine, I learned from general searching on YouTube (paraphrased, as exact reference has been mislaid) that migraine could have its origins in what is referred to as 'an electrolyte crisis', that starts elsewhere in the body, possibly the kidneys or liver'.  

Since finding this out, I've come across other references to migraine being described as 'an electrical storm' or 'nerve storm', with frequent comparison to Epilepsy.

Its also worth mentioning at this point, that as far as can tell, you can be Epileptic and suffer from migraine, but migraine does not eventually turn into Epilepsy.

So with this idea of 'electrical storm' aka electrolyte crisis in mind, I decided to look at each of the components involved in the Electrolysis process listed here, with thanks to Wikipedia:

In physiology, the primary ions of electrolytes are sodium (Na⁺), potassium (K⁺), calcium (Ca²⁺), magnesium (Mg²⁺), chloride (Cl⁻), hydrogen phosphate (HPO₄²⁻), and hydrogen carbonate (HCO₃⁻). The electric charge symbols of plus (+) and minus (−) indicate that the substance is ionic in nature and has an imbalanced distribution of electrons, the result of chemical dissociation. Sodium is the main electrolyte found in extracellular fluid and is involved in fluid balance and blood 
pressure control.

After reading that entry, I decided to read some more on the subject and downloaded another neat Kindle e-book, this time by Rudy Silva, a Nutritional Practitioner called:

I found this book to be very informative and highlighted lots of passages as I went through it.
  

Here are some cogent quotations (with permission from the author) that I think are particularly pertinent to my research:

"Potassium is transformed into electrical charges in the body called ions."

"These electrical potentials help.....nerve path ways..."

"It is the great alkalizer of the body....leading to reduced acid...."

"you may have excellent thought processes...."

"Potassium has a strong influence in the function of the liver and is regulated in your body by iodine".

"You need to take Potassium to help magnesium work properly..."

"Potassium and sodium work together, if the potassium is too low, your body will hold on to too much sodium..."

"Potassium eliminates lactic acids from the blood..."

"Potassium is a natural pain reducer which helps to control headaches, uterine pains, convulsions, and neuralgia....."

"It helps you to reduce anxiety, stress, worry, fear, and grief."

The references to Iodine, liver function and headaches are particularly germane.  

So, after several months of receiving the continued benefits  of Magnesium,  I've decided to try Potassium supplements now, because I would really like to explore a chemical basis for my migraines.  

Besides, I get the feeling that if I went to see a specialist, he/she would no doubt start me on all the obvious 'equalisers', which I understand these vital minerals to be.

I bought my bottle of Postassium tablets at Holland & Barrett, (as they were having a sale) at the weekend.  Each tablet has 99mg of Potassium Gluconate and some magnesium, as well as bulking agent.  The bottle recommends you take 4 tablets a day, preferably with meals.   

I currently take two tablets with lunch, as well and my 2 Rhodiola Rosea capsules.

Changes I noticed since taking Potassium
After about 4 days of taking Potassium I started to notice a 'strange' but positive change in my general sense of well being.  It took me a while to exactly identify how I was feeling better, as the effect is quite subtle (as compared to say Rhodiola), but unmistakable all the same.    

Its difficult to describe precisely the effect its  having on me, but I think I could sum it by saying, overall, I feel strangely 'refreshed', calmer and somehow more at ease??  

This is very noteworthy, especially as I've managed to achieve this while still under considerable stress.  

I suppose another way I could put it, is that I feel a lot better, in a relatively short space of time, whereas usually I would expect to feel as 'recovered' as this after several weeks??

The other thing I noticed, is that I have absolutely no residual neck pain left from my last headache.  I put this down to Potassium helping Magnesium to work better.  I think this approach definitely feels better than my taking maximum doses of Magnesium, as I was having 'bowel side effects' from that.  

I should also mention that just before I started taking Potassium, I halved my dose of magnesium, back down to 2 tablets, taken with B6.

(I'm not entirely sure, but I think because Potassium interacts closely with Iodine, and as I'm Hypothyroidism, maybe this could be part of the benefit I'm deriving from taking it??)    

Dog progress

I'm so pleased to report that our darling dog's general demeanour is about a hundred times better than he was before his seizure!  

Its such a relief to us and appears to me, almost as if nature had administered its own form of ECT to our troubled little fellow, and thereby corrected so much of his distress.  

- You know, I can't help wondering if the dog had a blood clot in his brain (that had travelled from the site of his emergency castration) and that has finally been reabsorbed by neighbouring structures, or something like that??  As I understand it, something like that usually takes about 3 months on medication, but as he was not on blood thinning medication, I wonder if it could have taken 12 months?  We're just totally relieved at his improvement, as you can imagine.  

Turns out I may have been panicking about my neck....

After posting a couple of days ago and feeling quite depressed at my painful neck artery, I decided to run some quick checks on what other people are experiencing.

Now it turns out that my right side Carotid artery is probably a little distended due to all this blood pounding to the top of my head during migraine headaches.  (I should mention, I'm in my late 40s.)

This 'excessive dilation', that eventually leads to there being a distention of the Carotid artery, is more than likely the result of the long term nature of my migraines.  

So I was relieved to learn that pain from this excessive dilation (and eventual distention) of the neck artery during and after migraine is apparently quite normal, and a survival mechanism that results from whenever there is any experience of pain in the head.  

This is how we are made: to flood our brains with blood at the least sign of threat to cranial survival.

I found a great article on this very subject that is really helpful: Vascular Neck Pain by Leonard  L Lovshin M.D.

After I read it, I sat and thought hard about the progression of my headaches over the years and recalled they were always as a result of a kind of 'nervous exhaustion' scenario, typically striking after I'd tried to pack too much into my life and not taken time out to relax.  

(Before I even had full blown migraines, I had pre-migraine symptoms that consisted of episodes of Vertigo that lasted for about 3 long and horrible days.  I used to get terrible nausea for no apparent reason, at least once a month, or more.  I'm only now discovering the significance of those symptoms.  

I had my first, really awful ice-pack-inducing migraine about 8 years ago, while I had pernicious anaemia.  The anaemia was so bad, the migraines were not that important by comparison.  Plus I always managed to get rid of them after say half hour with an ice pack on my head and some paracetamol.)     

So today, after a very restful night's sleep, I went food shopping.  I felt fine, my hair was OK and my complexion was back to normal.  The bright lights in the shops, my hot overcoat, and all the crowds, surprisingly, didn't have any adverse effects on me.  

Then, in the aisle between the pasta and the coffee, I remember turning round (too) quickly to go back for something, and suddenly I got this awful whooshing sensation in the top of my head and I felt that I was momentarily losing my balance.  I slowed down and waited to feel better.  It was nothing really but it showed I wasn't totally out of the woods.

Turns out, I might not bother to have the Carotid artery scan after all (?), as I really don't have the time and I would rather keep an eye on our dear dog.  

New Medicines

I decided to buy some more pills today.

This time I bought 5-HPT, which is supposed to be really good and I hope it will work in conjunction with Rhodiola Rosea, as I really like that.

The other thing I'm going to start taking is Potassium.  The reason for that is, its another in the group of Electrolyte process minerals and it has a bearing on salt intake.

Because I'm pretty certain of one thing, Sodium is somehow a part of my migraines.  As, so often they begin in the night, when I'm too hot.  I don't have a lot of salt in my diet, as we're a household that is very anti-salt.  But the fact is, salt is really important to temperature control and what I've noticed in the last 3 years is that I don't really perspire like I used to.  I get really hot, hot enough to have caused me to perspire say 5 years ago, but now a rising temperature is not the trigger for perspiration, in the way it used to be, at all.  I'm going to have to look into that, because that too is a survival mechanism and mine seems to be up the creek? 

I'll make sure I provide relevant links to what I've read about Potassium next time.

Have a great weekend !