<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Greetings Everyone, What was to be a pleasant lunch with her sister and cousin, eventually had my 70 year old mother hospitalised for low blood levels of sodium and potassium. The clinical manifestations were an incredible learning experience for us all. The day after eating a vegetarian patty with bulgar wheat, my mother began to experience her usual coeliac response: two days of diarrhea and general malaise. When her diarrhea cleared up by the third day, she thought the experience was behind her, and vowed to stay away from bulgar wheat. That weekend, however, she developed intense headache with neck and shoulder pain, and had no appetite at all. On Monday she went to her GP, who diagnosed temporal arteritis and prescribed prednisone and a blood test to confirm it. The next day, he informed her that the blood test didn't match temporal arteritis, so he diagnosed a pinched nerve, and sent her home with voltaren. The following morning, I arrived at my mother's to find her on the floor, quite confused. Back to the GP, who diagnosed a small stroke, unrelated to the previous few days of headache. As she was becoming a bit more lucid during his examination, he said to bring her back the next day. I decided to stay over that night, and went to check on her before going to bed. Again I found her on the floor, incontinent of urine, and completely disorientated, unable even, to recognise me! This time I phoned an ambulance, something I should have done that morning instead of going to the GP. Everyone from the ambulance attendants, to the emergency department staff, assumed that she'd had a stroke, or a hematoma. While in emergency, she began to twitch or shudder every thirty seconds or so. We were greatly relieved but puzzled when her CT scan, and X-rays showed nothing abnormal. The answer was in her blood results, which showed very, very low sodium and potassium levels. The culprits? A diuretic she had been on for three months, and her accident with bulgar wheat, which was the proverbial straw on the camel's back. After a night on IV potassium/sodium fluids, my mother's confusion disappeared, and over the next two weeks, with oral supplements, her headaches cleared up, and her strength slowly returned. During her five day stay in hospital, we had several hiccups trying to keep my mother gluten free, resulting in MORE diarreah, but that's another story. Eventually the dieticians figured it out. We all know that diarreah can have devastating affects on anyone, but in young children and the elderly, it can be much worse. My mother and I, and all the family for that matter, would be very interested to read about anyone else's experiences with low potassium and/ or sodium. Has anyone else had any of my mother's symtoms, and how long did it take for you to recover? Thanks for 'listening'! Jenny Auckland, New Zealand