Unsuspecting Dietary Factors in Hyperkalemia: A Case Report on Why History Matters.

We present a case of hyperkalemia secondary to excessive dietary intake of hard caramel candies. An 88-year-old male who presented with acute abdominal pain and vomiting was found to have hyperkalemia of 6.9 milliequivalents per liter. He was stabilized, treated, and discharged the following day after resolution. The cause was identified as his daily consumption of 200 hard caramel candies. The patient had been consuming sugar-free candies, which induced a chronic diarrhea. This led to potassium wasting and augmentation of his home medications. When he transitioned to eating regular caramel candies, he retained too much potassium leading to his presentation. While often overlooked, dietary history is a crucial part of history-taking to ensure that the underlying cause for illness is discovered and addressed.

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Copyright: © 2020 McLendon et al.

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Conflicts of Interest: By the CPC-EM article submission agreement, all authors are required to disclose all affiliations, funding sources and financial or management relationships that could be perceived as potential sources of bias. The authors disclosed none.