So, there we are, my granddaughter and my friend having dinner at the Mexican restaurant, and Bam! My friend falls to the floor and he tells me to call 911. He’s had two heart attacks prior to this, and this makes the third.
The ambulance comes to take him to the hospital and my granddaughter and I am not too far behind. I’ve never had a heart attack, so it was quite educational to be supportive and, in a sense, “be there” for my friend as he was going through this adventure.
Then, after preliminary tests were made, (now brace yourself for this one), the doctor comes in and says,
“It’s no surprise you had a heart attack. You had no magnesium or potassium in your system.”
I was shocked to hear this statement, and I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what do you mean? What does magnesium and potassium have to do with my friend’s heart attack?”
The doctor said that magnesium and potassium are necessary key ingredients which enable your heart to fire and operate correctly.
My friend asked about his other two heart attacks (which they had full records of at this same hospital)? The doctor confirmed that he had very low levels of both magnesium and potassium at the time of his previous heart attacks as well, and this one, was more severe and life-threatening than the other ones.
The doctor left to take care of some other patients, and my friend and I started to talk about this recent revelation about levels of magnesium and potassium. He told me that while he had been seen and treated twice prior to this, no one ever said two words (specifically these two words) to him about his being low on magnesium and/or potassium… and he could have died.
I think of myself as fairly health conscious and I do my fair share of supplementation, but guess what two ingredients are not in my supplemental regimen? Magnesium or potassium were absent. Well, not totally absent because there was some of each in my multivitamin.
Until this moment in time, I had no idea how important it was to have these two ingredients in your system. How embarrassing would it be for someone as healthy as me to show up in the hospital with a heart attack because I didn’t know about the importance of these two ingredients?
On the way home from the hospital, I stopped and picked up some magnesium and potassium to add to my daily regimen. My friend is also taking magnesium and potassium supplements. Who wouldn’t?
What a travesty to let my friend be treated for two heart attacks and never be made aware of the importance of magnesium and potassium? It’s as if he may not have had any of these heart attacks if he had higher levels of magnesium and potassium in his body.
To me, this seems like an important disclosure. I don’t know why none of the other doctors mentioned the lack of magnesium and potassium to my friend before, but for whatever reason, here it is.
If it’s a highly guarded secret, the cat’s out of the bag, now.
So, now you know, too.
Pass it on.