Severe Hypokalemia, Rhabdomyolysis, Muscle Paralysis, and Respiratory Impairment in a Hypertensive Patient Taking Herbal Medicines Containing Licorice

A 93 year-old hypertensive woman was found to have severe hypokalemia (as low as 1.3 mEq/L) and developed paralysis of the all extremities associated with metabolic alkalosis, hypoxemia, hypercapnea, extremely high levels of creatine phosphokinase (up to 9280 U/L), myoglobin and myoglobinuria compat...

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Veröffentlicht in:Internal Medicine 2007, Vol.46(9), pp.575-578
Hauptverfasser: Yasue, Hirofumi, Itoh, Teruhiko, Mizuno, Yuji, Harada, Eisaku
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:A 93 year-old hypertensive woman was found to have severe hypokalemia (as low as 1.3 mEq/L) and developed paralysis of the all extremities associated with metabolic alkalosis, hypoxemia, hypercapnea, extremely high levels of creatine phosphokinase (up to 9280 U/L), myoglobin and myoglobinuria compatible with rhabdomyolysis. Plasma renin activity and aldosterone levels were below normal. She was found to have been taking licorice-containing herbal medicines for the last 7 years. With the discontinuation of the licorice-containing medicines and administration of spironolactone together with intravenous and oral potassium supplement, her serum potassium level was normalized and her clinical symptoms and hypertension improved within 2 weeks.
ISSN:0918-2918
1349-7235
DOI:10.2169/internalmedicine.46.6316