Raised potassium levels

[Mmfudgy]

I've recently had a set of blood tests and the potassium one has come back a bit raised. I need to have a retest in a weeks time but am now panicking as I know it can be a symptom of kidney issues.

I'm recovering from shingles and have been on Acyclovir and antibiotics so don't know if this is relevant.

Are there any other causes for this? I have a bit of HA which doesn't help. Many thanks.

The most common reason, in the absence of anything else being wrong with your bloods, is the blood sitting about too long and being damaged before it got to the lab and so releasing potassium from the cells causing a falsely high reading.

This can also happen sometimes when you are taking it, depending on your technique - it's called a haemolysed sample. Sometimes it's very obvious and the lab simply rejects the sample and sometimes the potassium is just a bit high, you recheck and if it's normal the next time you just ignore it and carry on as if it never happened.

Loads and loads of other causes! Medications, constipation...
Try not to worry. I'd expect the same lot of bloods to have shown if you have kidney problems

Thanks both. That has reassured me. I guess if it was anything too serious then it would have shown up. Can it be caused by not drinking enough? I don't think I've been drinking enough lately.

Not really. If that was the case there would be other things on the bloods and also your body is really good at regulating it, regardless of what you drink.

Potentially it could be yes. If you are dehydrated your blood would be more concentrated.
If it was serious they wouldn't just leave it for a week.
Hope you can enjoy the weekend

There are lots of reasons and as pp said, the test can often falsely read higher due to simply taking the blood! Otherwise, if you've been unwell it's likely that you've been dehydrated.