Your body relies upon the essential vitamins and minerals found in the foods you eat. Essential minerals are the inorganic compounds, also known as elements, that support normal growth and development. Your body needs large amounts, more than 100 mg, of seven of the essential minerals, including potassium. Potassium performs vital functions within the body making it important to maintain the right potassium balance. Conditions leading to low potassium levels, known as hypokalemia, may require the use of potassium acetate.
Potassium Acetate
Potassium acetate is a concentrated solution that contains 3.93 g of this salt, or 40 mEq, milliequivalents, of both potassium ions and acetate ions. Doctors must dilute the solution with water prior to administering it by injection. Doctors use potassium acetate to replenish electrolytes in patients experiencing extremely low levels of potassium.
What is an Electrolyte?
Many of the essential minerals function as electrolytes, including potassium, sodium, magnesium and calcium. These minerals balance the amount of fluid contained inside cells with the amount of fluid in the space surrounding the cells. Electrolytes also regulate the total amount of fluid in your body, which impacts your blood pressure. More fluid in your body causes higher blood volume, which increases blood pressure to pump the additional blood volume through the body. Electrolytes also transmit nerve signals between nerves and the brain and play a vital role in the contraction and relaxation of muscle cells, which impacts how the heart beats.
Hypokalemia
Normally your blood contains 3.6 to 4.8 mEq/L of potassium, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic. When your potassium levels drop to 2.5 mEq/L or less, doctors diagnose you with hypokalemia. Hypokalemia may begin with weakness, fatigue, muscle cramps and constipation but can cause abnormal heart rhythms that can become life-threatening.
Considerations
Because potassium affects your heart, doctors must administer potassium acetate slowly, at a rate of no more than 1 mEq/kg/hr, according to the National Library of Medicine. The kidneys filter the blood and remove any excess minerals including potassium. Patients with impaired kidney function should not receive potassium acetate, as they may retain too much potassium, leading to symptoms of potassium intoxication that include numbness in the hands and feet, listlessness, mental confusion, weakness, low blood pressure and abnormal cardiac activity as measured on electrocardiograms. Patients with liver disease may not be able to utilize the acetate ion, so doctors should monitor these patients carefully.
Precautions
Doctors should ensure that the seal on the potassium acetate is intact prior to administration. Patients should be continually monitored by electrocardiogram while receiving potassium acetate to ensure that the patient maintains proper heart function.
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