back at it with my electrolyte fears - after 3 failed attempts at getting blood in the community and 2 failed attempts at urgent care and all my good veins blown, I’m feeling extremely defeated. I’ve tried to look after myself as best I can but my body has let me down. my GP can’t get me in for weeks, the urgent care told me I’ll be fine without checking any of my vitals - so I turn here for advice on whether I’m just being a big baby or if I need to ramp up my efforts to get help.

I’m aware we can’t diagnose or whatever just by symptoms but I’m wanting some reassurance / advice on whether the below is serious and worth facing the hospital for. also including what I’ve already tried below.

my symptoms/behaviours are as follows:

fatigue
leg aches and twitches, mostly at night. sometimes they make it hard to fall asleep. last night was particularly bad.
some chest pain.
heart rate into the low 40s and then into the 140s on standing
some shortness of breath when doing things like going upstairs etc
I’ve lost about 5kgs in 4 weeks
been eating mostly under 700 cal a day in that time with some days reaching 1200 max
been taking lax more frequently now
have had a few purging episodes

I’ve been taking 2 magnesium tablets everyday plus a multivitamin drink but doesn’t seem to do much. self requested bloods to try and limit damage to my body but yeah as above, didn’t work lol.
I haven’t had any MAJOR symptoms - am I overreacting? will I be okay to stay home? I’ve not had a heap of experiences with shit labs and obviously its case by case but no one else wants to help me lol

I would definitely try to do something about the biggest-ticket electrolytes. Also phosphate if you feel that refeeding syndrome is likely part of it.

the top two are salt (normal everyday salt even if it's not iodized),
calcium--- you can get in special calcium vitamins (I don't think that most vitamins have much calcium),
I know that potassium can be dangerous to self-supplement, but if you can try to make sure you keep down some foods with potassium in them. idk if this potassium salt (in the salt area of the grocery store) is safer than potassium tablets, but that could be something to research.

if you're consuming calcium and iron, maybe try to take them at least two hours apart. there are debates about whether or not that is helpful in how much you absorb, but it's an additional factor to consider.


edit: also try to prioritize protein if you can
disclaimer: of course take this with a grain of salt, run things by your doctor if possible, etc, etc, all of that good stuff

 

oh, I sort of misread, to answer your main question, I have no idea, I just noticed that you hadn't mentioned the other electrolytes and as you are already questioning if those might be messed up, I'd at least try that to limit the damage


it definitely sounds like something's going on--at very least some sort of deficiency and I think it was smart to try to get the blood draws despite the lack of help you got from it.

I really don't know because sometimes doctors can tell if you've got that long and sometimes they says something confidently but are 100% wrong.

If my body were doing that I'd guess really low iron, low potassium and or salt, and probably dehydrated from the lax and from not having enough electrolytes to keep well-hydrated, but that's my body based on what doctors have told me in the past when I've felt like that. That you said you've been taking a multivitamin drink makes me suspect that looking at the things not usually included in them might be a good harm-reduction idea. A lot of the nutrition shakes have low percentages of many of the vitamins and assume you're going to drink a couple (about five) of the drinks everyday.

Anyway, I should let someone with a little more scientific knowledge answer now.