Hi Mookie,
Can someone enlighten me as to why I felt so awful today after my 1st dose of florinef ? I split the tablet in 1/4's as well. Sorry to hear that you are feeling bad.
Unfortunately as I said before it takes a while for the med to work. There are BIG changes on the body as fluid levels are altered some of which are unpleasant. Which is why starting at 1/4 tab & increasing by 1/4 tab is recommended to minimise these affects.
You may need to increase Florinef faster than once a week. I did mention that maybe 1/4 tab increases every 3-5 days may be better for you. Thats what I had to do.
Some dont feel the benefits until they reach at least 1 tab. Some have such bad symptoms that Docs recommend starting on 1 tab immediately.
Its a bit early to tell with you as yet.
I've been taking 60 mEq Potassium per day and today I bumped it up to 80.Its good that you increased the Potassium I did say to double it before starting the Florinef because of your low blood levels. You were on 40meq increased to 60 for the past week & now are on 80? So thats now 3120mg Potassium. How are you dosing that? 2 tabs twice a day?
About an hour after I took the pill, I had very frequent PVC's. Probably over a hundred today. On a usual day, I have maybe 3 or 4 that I notice. This was different, because the pvc's were very strong and frequent and lightened up around 3 or 4pm.Hopefully the increase will help the PVC's. Have you got a BP monitor yet? What is happening with sitting & standing HR & BP when you have these PVC episodes?
My electrolytes were ok I bumped up my Potassium from 3.5 to 4.2 in a week. But my sodium was 139. The increase in both is good. While those levels are better than before they are still far from optimal of course. Optimal is 144-146 for Sodium. Potassium optimal is ~5.
I've been taking the sea salt 3 times a day about up to 1/2 tsp. at each dose.You need to maintain that for the time being. Once you get Florinef up some more you maystart to decrease that.
I dont understand why I use up so much Potassium considering it's in the middle of winter and I'm not sweating.The problem is not related to sweating. Its to do with electrolyte balancing & low Aldo/Sodium. Certainly sweating, vomiting, diarreah will all decrease electrolytes too.
What should I do now?I would stay on same Sea Salt & 80meq Potassium for now. Stay on 1/4 tab Florinef for another few days then consider a 1/4 tab increase
And by the way, another question is that my anion gap is 4.0L norms (7-16) Could this be of any significance? I am on 2 grains armour and 30 of HCAnion Gap is a calculation
Anion gap = (Na + K) - (Cl + [HCO3-]) (all units mmol/L)
Thats (Sodium + Potassium) less (Chloride + Bicarbonate)
As your Sodium & Potassium is low your Anion Gap is low. This means you are too Alkaline at present. Elevated Anion Gap means you are too Acidic.
Here a calculator
intsmain.is.mcw.edu/clincalc/aniongap.htmland some info
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anion_gapHas anyone had this type of reaction? Thanks for looking at my post. This is not uncommon to have either NO or UNPLEASANT reactions initially. You need to persevere to get to a higher dose & give the electrolytes time to reach more optimal & balanced levels.
If the symptoms become worse or are too distressing then speed up the dose increases.
As far as retesting electrolytes I tested 2 weeks after starting Florinef. I was on 1 tab in am by then as I had increased 1/4 tab every 3-5 days.
You can of course test more often than that if you want to see what is happening with Sodium & Potassium.
Last point is it takes a couple of weeks on a stable dose of Florinef to fully evaluate its affects.