Conn's without high BP?

[Guest guest]

I am new here, and suspect I may have Conn's.

I have been losing massive amounts of Potassium over the last two years. The

beginning of this coincided with my total thyroidectomy in May of 2008.

Only recently did I find a doctor interested enough to find out WHY I am losing

potassium, instead of just throwing more and more Klor-con at me, and she has

run some labs.

She supects I may have an adrenal tumor, but not all the lab work fits.

I currently take 140meq Klor-con, and this brings me barely into normal range.

My symptoms:

~excessive thirst

~headaches, especially bad in the morning--often waking me in the wee hours

~shakiness

~dizziness

~muscle weakness

~metallic taste in mouth

~heavy heart pounding

~fatigue

~dark undereye circles upon awakening in the morning, no matter how much sleep

I've gotten

~waking at night to pee once or twice(never used to do that!)

My labs:

~high serum aldosterone

~low serum potassium, calcium, magnesium

~high urine cortisol

~high urine potassium

~high urine chloride

This is where it gets weird.

I normally have very low blood pressure 90/60, or less, my entire life.

It was brought to my attention that my symptoms of dizziness and headache were

those of HIGH blood pressure. I went to the local drug store to get my BP

checked. I was shocked to find it 130/78. Certainly not dangerously high, but

much higher than I was used to.

The headaches and dizziness became bad enough that I had to leave work and go to

the ER one morning, where they found nothing but low electroloytes. They sent me

home to rest, and of course were not alarmed at my 121/80 BP.

My sister insisted that I should drink a bunch of Gatorade. I didn't think this

would help since I was already taking megadoses of calcium, magnesium, and

potassium. I purchased a big bottle of gatorade, and drank about 34 oz of it.

Within 2 hours my blood pressure had dropped about 20 points. The only missing

link was the sodium that was in the gatorade. Sodium was the only electrolyte

that I was NOT supplementing.

Several hours later, my BP creeped up again; I drank gatorade and it went back

down.

I had to work the next day, and woke with a headache. I drank a cup of hot salt

water and felt better. I had to drink salt water throughout the day at work to

ward off dizzy spells and headache.

This is where it gets really weird:

That night I decided to eat Ramen Noodles(1800mg sodium) before bed. I woke the

next morning headache free for the first time in weeks.

It appears the SODIUM was causing my BP to drop, crazy as it sounds.

Sodium also alleviated the horrible excessive thirst that had been experiencing

for weeks.

I am assuming the high aldosterone was causing the excessive thirst.

*My question is can sodium ever drive down aldosterone?

*My next question is can someone have Conn's with higher than normal, but still

in range blood pressure.

Having my BP rise 35 points caused horrible symptoms, but it was still in normal

range.

*Third question is in what circumstance would sodium actually lower blood

pressure? Because that is indeed what is happening

My doctor is baffled, and trying to figure out what to do next.

Meanwhile, I am drinking salt water to try and stay functional.

Thanks for any thoughts on this!