Hello everyone! I am new here. I started the ketogenic lifestyle last week and so far so good. The only thing is that my heart is pounding. I have started taking a multivitamin and increasing my sodium. I got my ketostix in the mail today and the test immediately turned the darkest color, which is marked 16 mmLl/L. I am worried this is too high, especially with my heart pounding. Will upping my carbs to 30 mg, bring my ketones level lower?
Any thoughts?
I knew I had seen a thread about this. Sharing in the hope it helps. I get palpitations from time to time and they suck. Sending good thoughts.
Are you a type 1 diabetic?
If not, it’s hard to answer those questions because we don’t know your actual ketone level. The stix are largely useless for an accurate ketone level measurement. What have you been eating?
I am not a diabetic as far as I know. My last A1C (?) was in the upper 5 range.
I have been eating 1200-1400 calories a day. I am 5’2" and 178 pounds.
I have been eating eggs, ground beef, roast, bacon, cucumbers, tomatoes, fat head pizza, mushrooms, onion, fat bombs, prosciutto and fresh mozzarella cheese. I limit my protein to 60 grams.
Could I be overestimating my measurements for my food? I don’t always measure exactly. Maybe I am eating less calories than I thought?
I would say, based on my own experiences, the heart pounding is probably unbalanced electrolytes (sodium, magnesium, salt) however with heart issues you don’t really want to mess around so you may want to go to a doctor to double check it’s not something of concern.
I don’t think the ketostix are especially accurate, and as long as you are not a type 1 diabetic I shouldn’t think you wouldn have to worry about it.
Concentrations in the urine will be higher when dehydrated - so perhaps that is related, too. Especially when you start out drink LOTS of water.
Again though, if you’re concerned go to a doctor, just as a precaution - it is better to be overly cautious than to not check and miss something important!
Hi! The same thing happened to me a few weeks ago. Since I’m taking Synthroid for hypothyroidism, I thought I needed an adjustment of my dosage. I was doing keto at about 20 gr of carbs a day. I talked to my doctor about it, she ordered some blood tests and I needed to lower my Synthroid dosage. Now, everything is fine but I’m eating more carbs (I would say between 30 and 40 gr. When I was eating 20 gr of carbs, after about 10 days of doing that, my blood sugar was 2.9 mmol/liter (I don’t know about the US measurements) but that is low. I felt a bit dizzy but not too bad. My ketone level was at 5.5 mmol/l at that time. Now that I eat more carbs, my ketone level varies between 0.9 and 1.7.
My ketones are measured by a glucometer by a blood sample.
My ketones normally range between 2 and 4, in ketosis for about 2 years.
When I tried some exogenous ketones, they went up (for a period of about 2 hours) by 1.5mmol
on both occasions my heart stared pounding like crazy…
might be that high ketones create this reaction.