High Levels of Potassium in blood

My boyfriend has had 2 blood work labs done,and his potassium levels are very high. His doctor is giving him echocardiogram. Could it be possible that he is checking for Alcoholic Cardiomyopathy?

[NTB]

alcohol use generally results in *low* potassium, along with depletion of other minerals

but high levels of K can result in irregular heart rhythm, so maybe that's what the doc is looking for -  the effect of high K, not the cause

you can tell him meanwhile to avoid potassium in his diet, e.g. potatoes, bananas. High K can result in bad damage to kidneys.

The next step might be to determine why K is high. The term is "Hyperkalaemia". The cause might be that the kidneys are not excreting enough, that a drug is causing retention of K, or that cells are releasing K into the bloodstream for some odd reason.

[Tinu1959]

I have high potassium level near to upper allowable limit. I have in last two weeks, before blood test, drastically reduced fluid intake due to heart problem. Can potassium increase be due to low fluid intake. I am also on deuratics.

[NTB]

sure, dehydration can make the concentration of minerals and other blood substances like creatinine rise.

(NOTE TO MODERATOR: I did *not* receive an email notice of this reply, even though I am set to receive instant notices [and usually do] and even though this thread is definitely marked to be watched ['stop watching' is seen by me right now as an option on the top of this page]. Have you been getting reports of site technical malfunctions?)

[NTB]

never mind about the problem with getting email notification of watched threads. The problem is with my email service, not with this site.