1. < Kidney Conditions
Profile picture for lizzy4

What is a good diet to keep potassium low.

Posted by lizzy4 @lizzy4, Feb 13, 2025

My husband is diabetic and has to watch his potassium intake because his kidneys are at stage 3. He is 73 guit smoking 5 years ago does not drink alcohol. Could you help with what is good for healthy meal. Thank you

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Kidney Conditions Support Group.

Profile picture for Ginger, Volunteer Mentor
Mentor
Ginger, Volunteer Mentor | @gingerw | Feb 16, 2025

@lizzy4 Welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect! You have had some great responses already here!

I am a dialysis patient, doing peritoneal dialysis everyday. For many years before dialysis, my renal diet included watching my potassium level. That to me meant no potatoes, no oranges [except Mandarin], no tomatoes, no bananas. Following a printed list of high and low potassium foods, my diet was modified. Fast forward to now, and I take furosemide which helps my system expell excess fluids. It also can play havoc with healthy potassium levels, needed a for healthy heart. So, I take prescription potassium supplements, in addition to being free to eat all those foods I couldn't before. Can I tell you how good my first taste of hand squeezed orange juice was?!

Our diets can be a complicated thing, always a balancing act, given our individual health situation. I hope your husband can team up with his care team and include a renal nutritionist https://www.renalnutrition.org/home to get the best eating plan for him. Oftentimes we are dealing with multiple heath concerns and need to incorporate different eating plans together. It's not easy, is it?
Ginger

REPLY
Profile picture for lumis
lumis | @lumis | Mar 4 10:26am
In reply to @kathymiami "I suggest seeing a dietician/medical nutritionist. Thanks to this group, I've been working on getting a..." + (show)
Profile picture for kathymiami @kathymiami

I suggest seeing a dietician/medical nutritionist.
Thanks to this group, I've been working on getting a renal dietician using my medicare advantage plan. Only 11 dieticians in total on the list within 30 miles of Miami where 2.7 million people live.

I looked up each listed dietician and talked to a few - ONLY one, the last one I called, seems like they have good knowledge of renal issues (she only takes renal, diabetic or cardio patients). My next step would have asked my doctor to send request to insurance company for me to go outside of the network for renal dietician or self pay for at least one visit.

The rest of the list were yoga experts, lactation specialists, bariatric only, diabetic only, or listed 30 areas of expertise; one became so very cranky when I asked her about her working with renal patients - she told me that she is a specialist becuase she had 35 years of dietician experience and the insurance company wouldn't have listed her if she wasn't experience in renal issues. Ha!

Having to do this was exhausting (dxd last month at age 65). I almost just went to see any dietician. We have to keep advocating for ourselves and not put up with cranky specialists or doctors.

Jump to this post

@kathymiami

REPLY
View MoreView Less
Please sign in or register to post a reply.