Aa
hypokalemia?
Hey! I'm a 21 year old female. I started taking an extra .1 mg of florinef on Tuesday. Today is Friday and I have gained 4 pounds (I never gain weight), my bp is a little high (120/80), and last night I felt like my heart beat was slow but hard and my chest hurt, my legs were crampy and achy, I was really thirsty (even though I drank a ton of water and I kept having to go to the bathroom). Are these symptoms of hypokalemia? My cardio is not in the office today. I need to know if I should cut back my florinef to only .1 mg at least until I can talk to my cardio or what I should do.
My dr. called back today and just said to stick with the lower dose. I guess we'll see what happens when I go back and see him again.
Thanks so much for your response! I ended up just cutting back my dose to what I was taking before and I bought some OJ to drink. I think that eating some of the high potassium foods helped and cutting back on the florinef helped. I don't have as much of the muscle aches now and my heart rate feels more normal again. I'm still having symptoms but they feel more like normal POTS symptoms now and not like the weird symptoms I was having. I am planning to call my cardio tomorrow to see what he has to say about it.
My guess is the weight gain is due to florinef being a steroid. I had my chest hurt I think it was with midodrine, but stopped florinef due to side effect of headache, etc.. You might have an abnormal potassium that could explain at least part of your symptoms, though I'm not seeing the thirstiness and having to go a lot, which is so common to us with dysautonomia, but you would need a blood test to find out what your potassium level is. They need to not have the tourniquet rubber too long before drawing blood for potassium, because that can cause a false increase in your potassium measurement.
Before you take any more florinef, I think you might try to get a hold of your primary care doctor about cutting back, since your cardio is not in, and if your primary care physician is not in either, you might try calling and speaking to a pharmacist about your situation. Your blood pressure, though it may be high for what you normally experience, used to be considered the gold standard for desired blood pressure and only pretty recently have they said they want it to be under 120 and under 80. I'm more concerned about your slow heart rate and chest pain. Please, don't take any more medicine until you talk to a healthcare professional, even if it means going into urgent care or something.
Before you take any more florinef, I think you might try to get a hold of your primary care doctor about cutting back, since your cardio is not in, and if your primary care physician is not in either, you might try calling and speaking to a pharmacist about your situation. Your blood pressure, though it may be high for what you normally experience, used to be considered the gold standard for desired blood pressure and only pretty recently have they said they want it to be under 120 and under 80. I'm more concerned about your slow heart rate and chest pain. Please, don't take any more medicine until you talk to a healthcare professional, even if it means going into urgent care or something.
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