Does Anyone Have References that Validate the Use of Urine pH as a Proxy for Blood/ECF pH?

[Jennifer]

I actually had been frustrated at it because I couldn't get restful sleep when I had to wake up so often at night to pee.

Yesterday, I tested my blood sugar control with a 5hr OGTT and realize it has been the worst it's ever been.

I think my wrong understanding of optimality with regard to urine pH has contributed to that. This is the danger of getting healthy (or trying to) with having wrong ideas and thinking they're the right ideas. But snapping out of it is something anybody should be thankful for, and the past is the past and one learns from it.

I understand. During my time following RBTI, my practitioner had me measuring the pH of my saliva and urine with reagents, as well as my urine Brix (blood sugar) with a refractometer, multiple times a day, and frequently checking my urine with a conductivity (EC) meter for things like my electrolyte balance and based on the readings, had me taking specific vitamin and mineral supplements (14+ a day) and consuming specific foods (especially juices containing celery, kale, parsley and cilantro ), to bring my numbers in range and I didn’t feel better for it, I felt worse. My blood sugar was constantly crashing and I woke multiple times during the night needing to pee, among other things. Jumping through hoops in an attempt to regulate something that is my body’s job to regulate was stressful to me and the stress itself was affecting my saliva and urine pH, blood sugar, electrolyte balance etc. and blocking my healing. However, I have no regrets as it was a rung in the ladder that got me to this point.

 

[yerrag]

I understand. During my time following RBTI, my practitioner had me measuring the pH of my saliva and urine with reagents, as well as my urine Brix (blood sugar) with a refractometer, multiple times a day, and frequently checking my urine with a conductivity (EC) meter for things like my electrolyte balance and based on the readings, had me taking specific vitamin and mineral supplements (14+ a day) and consuming specific foods (especially juices containing celery, kale, parsley and cilantro ), to bring my numbers in range and I didn’t feel better for it, I felt worse. My blood sugar was constantly crashing and I woke multiple times during the night needing to pee, among other things. Jumping through hoops in an attempt to regulate something that is my body’s job to regulate was stressful to me and the stress itself was affecting my saliva and urine pH, blood sugar, electrolyte balance etc. and blocking my healing. However, I have no regrets as it was a rung in the ladder that got me to this point.

I have a refractometer and that is not an easy thing to use. I'd gladly use it to test beer if I were making beer, but it's not fun testing my urine using it. I prefer something with a button and a digital readout. Who doesn't? I can now understand better your question, given the effort it took for you and then the disappointing turn in terms of how you really felt after that. And yet your persisted! Was that a necessary part of your body adjusting to get healed? Or did you learn that you were doing something incorrectly and improved on to finally get it right?

 

[Wilfrid]

Hi, no studies that I know of.
If I manage to find something interesting, I will post it for sure.

 

[yerrag]

Dog study

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152/ajplegacy.1941.132.1.272

The study makes not attempt to validate the use of urine pH as a surrogate market for blood pH, although it shows that urine pH changes in the same direction as blood pH. However, a few interesting things to highlight:

Blood and urine becomes more acidic in these two conditions: In asphyxia conditions and when carbogen (air mixed with carbon dioxide) is used to breathe.
And they become more alkaline in low oxygen (ie oxygen lower than the 21% in atmosphere) and in overventilation (such as when you breathe in very long and exhale short).

When blood and urine pH becomes more acidic, more ammonia and phosphates are excreted, and less chloride in the form of sodium chloride.
When they become more alkaline, less ammonia and phosphates excreted, and more sodium chloride.

Phosphates and chloride seem to interchange. When phosphate excretion high, chloride excretion is low, And vice versa. When pH more acidic, more phosphate excretion and less chloride excretion. When pH more alkaline, less phosphate excretion and more chloride excretion.

This leads me to wonder if I am losing more sodium chloride unnecessarily when I intentionally make my urine more alkaline with large intake of bicarbonate supplementation. What is the effect of losing sodium chloride? Does this lead to the body wanting to conserve sodium later on, thus producing aldosterone to conserve sodium and to waste potassium? And is there a relationship to increased blood pressure as well?

As study involves sedating the dogs, I can't understand if there is a meaningful conclusion on urination rate as affected by blood and urine pH. Although the study makes mention without reference that in most studies in humans, breathing in more CO2 increases urination rate.

 

[yerrag]

Hi, no studies that I know of.
If I manage to find something interesting, I will post it for sure.

Thanks Wilfrid. It will come up one day for sure!

 

[yerrag]

No, but it gives clues on what's in excess and what the body is trying to do (provided that kidney function is normal), which is why it tends to reflect recent interventions. But chronic issues usually lead to compensation and it can be tricky to interpret.

- Urinary ammonia content as a determinant of urinary pH during chronic metabolic acidosis

- Low urine pH affects the development of metabolic syndrome, associative with the increase of dyslipidemia and dysglycemia: Nationwide cross-sectional study (KNHANES 2013-2015) and a single-center retrospective cohort study
- Urine alkalization facilitates uric acid excretion

There is such trend, but I'm not aware of it being used other than as a complementary test and focusing on its composition beyond hydrogen ions to find out whether the cause of metabolic acidosis is renal or gastrointestinal. In this case, the expected response when kidneys are working right is to have chloride in surplus of potassium and sodium, with the likely responsible for their difference being ammonium. However, if chloride isn't being dumped as expected (represented by potassium and sodium in surplus), it indicates a kidney issue.

- The urinary anion gap in normal anion gap metabolic acidosis | Deranged Physiology

Thanks, especially for the last link.

I've sensed that when i increase my intake of potassium, I see less foaming as well as less of the stinky smell.

It made me realize the importance of increased potassium intake, especially with foods.

As for sodium, I may have to bite the bullet and try doing one month of of daily intake of 10g of salt (sodium chloride) on top of what I get from food.

Assuming all of that is retained, I get 300g of salt, and with water taking up 60 percent of my 70kg body weight, that would be 42kg. That would be 300/42000 = 0.7 percent of salt. Of course, that isn't a good assumption so I should be safe.

 

[Jennifer]

I have a refractometer and that is not an easy thing to use. I'd gladly use it to test beer if I were making beer, but it's not fun testing my urine using it. I prefer something with a button and a digital readout. Who doesn't? I can now understand better your question, given the effort it took for you and then the disappointing turn in terms of how you really felt after that. And yet your persisted! Was that a necessary part of your body adjusting to get healed? Or did you learn that you were doing something incorrectly and improved on to finally get it right?

Nothing incorrectly, it was just my nature being a wrong fit for RBTI and the protocol. My practitioner helped me monitor my numbers and adjust my diet and supplements accordingly but along with the things I previously mentioned, I struggled with raising my urea index or what she called the brain number—it was 3. In case you’re interested, below you’ll find a description of what the urea index is and what normal levels are under Nitrates & Ammonia in the Urine:

MANAGE HEALTH NATURALLY - RBTI

Reams Biological Theory of Ionization (RBTI) analyzes urine and saliva for carbohydrates, pH, Conductivity, Cell Debris, and the ureas. Dr. Reams discovered what the perfect set of numbers are for optimal health. We can move our numbers to optimal health.

www.managehealthnaturally.com

She said she sees low brain numbers in scientists, researchers and moms, but had only ever seen as low a number as mine in a priest, and that my numbers showed I had weak kidneys and a potassium deficiency—kidney disease runs in my family—and was thinking and worrying excessively. I’ve always been a deep thinker so when following a protocol that required me to do multiple tests and calculations just to eat, by its very design, it had me overthinking and worrying needlessly.

RBTI held some truth, but it made complicated what was simple to fix. Later, while following Ray’s work, I came across a quote where he mentioned that being sensitive to loud noises—I took this to mean startles easily/anxiousness—was a sign of a potassium deficiency and while following Dr. Morse’s work, I figured out that my weak kidneys were due to my weak adrenals—as reflected by my low blood pressure and anxiety—and that my weak adrenals were caused by poor thyroid function.

Dr. Morse misses the adrenals and thyroid connection because even though he uses temps as an indication of thyroid function, my own experience, as well as my mum’s, shows that adrenaline can falsely elevate temps, and those with hypothyroidism often have high adrenaline to compensate. Also, with hypothyroidism, the body wastes minerals such as potassium, sodium, and magnesium. A simple thyroid supplement fixed what thousands of dollars worth of supplements and testing hadn’t.

 

[yerrag]

Nothing incorrectly, it was just my nature being a wrong fit for RBTI and the protocol. My practitioner helped me monitor my numbers and adjust my diet and supplements accordingly but along with the things I previously mentioned, I struggled with raising my urea index or what she called the brain number—it was 3. In case you’re interested, below you’ll find a description of what the urea index is and what normal levels are under Nitrates & Ammonia in the Urine:

MANAGE HEALTH NATURALLY - RBTI

Reams Biological Theory of Ionization (RBTI) analyzes urine and saliva for carbohydrates, pH, Conductivity, Cell Debris, and the ureas. Dr. Reams discovered what the perfect set of numbers are for optimal health. We can move our numbers to optimal health.

www.managehealthnaturally.com

She said she sees low brain numbers in scientists, researchers and moms, but had only ever seen as low a number as mine in a priest, and that my numbers showed I had weak kidneys and a potassium deficiency—kidney disease runs in my family—and was thinking and worrying excessively. I’ve always been a deep thinker so when following a protocol that required me to do multiple tests and calculations just to eat, by its very design, it had me overthinking and worrying needlessly.

RBTI held some truth, but it made complicated what was simple to fix. Later, while following Ray’s work, I came across a quote where he mentioned that being sensitive to loud noises—I took this to mean startles easily/anxiousness—was a sign of a potassium deficiency and while following Dr. Morse’s work, I figured out that my weak kidneys were due to my weak adrenals—as reflected by my low blood pressure and anxiety—and that my weak adrenals were caused by poor thyroid function.

Dr. Morse misses the adrenals and thyroid connection because even though he uses temps as an indication of thyroid function, my own experience, as well as my mum’s, shows that adrenaline can falsely elevate temps, and those with hypothyroidism often have high adrenaline to compensate. Also, with hypothyroidism, the body wastes minerals such as potassium, sodium, and magnesium. A simple thyroid supplement fixed what thousands of dollars worth of supplements and testing hadn’t.

Now I know why you understand me. That was some learning you underwent.

Sometimes we have to make our own Rube Goldberg machine that doesn't work to appreciate the simple things. Not that you set out to make one. Glad it turned out simple and well. I have a sister who has resigned to accepting her condition of candida etc and she can't do anything because simple activities stress her out. She has spent years and a lot of money. But I know her well enough to say to call it quits. I think those who can extract themselves out of a loop and who heal need the ability to lift themselves out of their body consciously so they can look at their own body separately as a patient and be the doctor to that patient. If they can't, they have to be fortunate to find a good doctor, and have the means to pay that doctor. There are many doctors who can't do that, so eventually the patient has to become her own doctor as she knows her body best. Not to criticize these doctors, but they can't be there all the time to observe as well as the patient. Still, it's not a loss seeing these doctors because they teach many things that add to the patient's store of knowledge, and the knowledge makes a big difference. You can't get this knowledge online and in an online forum such as ours, it's still not the same.

How were you losing sodium, potassium, and magnesium when you were hypothyroid? Were you acidic and when you urinate, you were excreting a lot of sodium and potassium and magnesium? And were you urinating a lot?

 

[burtlancast]

The more I hang out in this forum, the more I get to think like you Burt! Nothing is as it appears, and I find myself having sometimes to take an about face on what I've known and done and it has paid off.

Blood acidosis protects against cancer

This comes from the works of Andre Gernez, who summarized all the theories about cancer and devised a prevention program based on acidosis through fast and a targeting of immature cancer cells at their most vulnerable period, during their division (lasts 2 hours only) " 2 - Role of metabolic...

raypeatforum.com

 

[yerrag]

This article discusses a situation where both urine and saliva test acidic, and if the breathing rate is not tested and found to be slow, at less than 14 bpm, then the wrong diagnosis of metabolic acidosis would be made. This could lead to a further exacerbation of the condition, which in fact is metabolic alkalosis:

(There is a further form of metabolic alkalosis that can see low breath rate and low urine and saliva pH, and this is when potassium has been depleted, and from the prior reference of the kidney’s preferential treatment of holding onto sodium, if no potassium is available to be exchanged for that sodium, then hydrogen will be exchanged and the urine goes acid.)

There are many that have a belief that if urine and saliva both go acid that a person is overly “acidic” – but if breath rate is quite low, that is a giveaway that blood gas exchange is occurring for compensatory reasons and you know from kidney physics that the kidneys will be engaged in the specific aforesaid operations, screaming if you’re listening, that the body is in desperate need of some form of acid to balance the system.

If they are treated as if they have acidosis, simply because urine and saliva have low pH, it can exacerbate an already bad situation in numerous ways. Maybe not immediately apparent.

Metabolic Alkalosis

In lieu of a case study, I'm just going to touch a wee bit on the topic of metabolic alkalosis. This is the condition where someone is too alkaline. Yep, too alkaline. The extra cellular space

biomedx.com

What I've been doing wrong in the recent past has been to measure only urine pH.

I now realize I have to consider also the saliva pH, and not only that, but also my breathing rate.

This is new to me. @Daniil

 

[yerrag]

This is a related article, which is on metabolic acidosis:

Metabolic Acidosis

This is the condition where someone is systemically too acid. The extracellular plasma fluid has a low pH wherein the H+ concentration is high and the bicarbonate level is low. Just as in metabolic

biomedx.com

 

[yerrag]

The problem is I have a hard time measuring my breathing rate. The moment I start to count, the more I end up not breathing naturally when I'm not observing my breathing. Someone who knows should be observing me without me being aware of it to get an accurate result, it seems.

I think I solved this problem.

It is easier to breathe in and out when I breathe in with the nose and exhale with the mouth. Then I can count my breaths more easily.

It goes without saying I only do this when I'm counting my breaths. At all other times, I breathe in and out with my nose. Mouth closed all the time.

 

[Daniil]

This article discusses a situation where both urine and saliva test acidic, and if the breathing rate is not tested and found to be slow, at less than 14 bpm, then the wrong diagnosis of metabolic acidosis would be made. This could lead to a further exacerbation of the condition, which in fact is metabolic alkalosis:

(There is a further form of metabolic alkalosis that can see low breath rate and low urine and saliva pH, and this is when potassium has been depleted, and from the prior reference of the kidney’s preferential treatment of holding onto sodium, if no potassium is available to be exchanged for that sodium, then hydrogen will be exchanged and the urine goes acid.)

There are many that have a belief that if urine and saliva both go acid that a person is overly “acidic” – but if breath rate is quite low, that is a giveaway that blood gas exchange is occurring for compensatory reasons and you know from kidney physics that the kidneys will be engaged in the specific aforesaid operations, screaming if you’re listening, that the body is in desperate need of some form of acid to balance the system.

If they are treated as if they have acidosis, simply because urine and saliva have low pH, it can exacerbate an already bad situation in numerous ways. Maybe not immediately apparent.

Metabolic Alkalosis

In lieu of a case study, I'm just going to touch a wee bit on the topic of metabolic alkalosis. This is the condition where someone is too alkaline. Yep, too alkaline. The extra cellular space

biomedx.com

What I've been doing wrong in the recent past has been to measure only urine pH.

I now realize I have to consider also the saliva pH, and not only that, but also my breathing rate.

This is new to me. @Daniil

It means, there's a borderline situation where alkalosis looks like acidosis, right?

You know that I use a bicarbonate test to find out my metabolic state. My urine, by the way, was also acidified(6.0).

 

[yerrag]

It means, there's a borderline situation where alkalosis looks like acidosis, right?

You know that I use a bicarbonate test to find out my metabolic state. My urine, by the way, was also acidified(6.0).

What is the bicarbonate test like?

The example use, where alkalosis was mistaken for acidosis, is not a borderline situation. It is a situation where it one opposite situation gets mistaken for the other. Rather, where one sees white where one should be seeing black. That is hardly what I would consider borderline. It speaks more to having an inadequate set of tools to diagnose.

 

[Daniil]

What is the bicarbonate test like?

The example use, where alkalosis was mistaken for acidosis, is not a borderline situation. It is a situation where it one opposite situation gets mistaken for the other. Rather, where one sees white where one should be seeing black. That is hardly what I would consider borderline. It speaks more to having an inadequate set of tools to diagnose.

I know what you mean.

The standard bicarbonate value

Standard bicarbonate is the concentration of bicarbonate in the plasma from blood which is equilibrated with a normal PaCO2 (40 mmHg) and a normal pO2 (over 100 mmHg) at a normal temperature (37°C). Usually, it is obtained by solving the Henderson-Hasselbalch equation to get a bicarbonate value...

derangedphysiology.com

The actual bicarbonate value

Actual bicarbonate is the concentration of hydrogen carbonate in the plasma. The ABG machine usually reports this as cHCO3-(P). It is a derived variable. One is interested in the bicarbonate value because it is the most important extracellular fluid buffer, accounting for 75% of total buffering...

derangedphysiology.com

Here is a little written about this test. The analysis includes both indicators and so you can understand your condition.

By the way, aspirin definitely helps me with polyuria. Now I take 1.5 grams a day and forgot about it.

 

[Jennifer]

Now I know why you understand me. That was some learning you underwent.

Sometimes we have to make our own Rube Goldberg machine that doesn't work to appreciate the simple things. Not that you set out to make one. Glad it turned out simple and well. I have a sister who has resigned to accepting her condition of candida etc and she can't do anything because simple activities stress her out. She has spent years and a lot of money. But I know her well enough to say to call it quits. I think those who can extract themselves out of a loop and who heal need the ability to lift themselves out of their body consciously so they can look at their own body separately as a patient and be the doctor to that patient. If they can't, they have to be fortunate to find a good doctor, and have the means to pay that doctor. There are many doctors who can't do that, so eventually the patient has to become her own doctor as she knows her body best. Not to criticize these doctors, but they can't be there all the time to observe as well as the patient. Still, it's not a loss seeing these doctors because they teach many things that add to the patient's store of knowledge, and the knowledge makes a big difference. You can't get this knowledge online and in an online forum such as ours, it's still not the same.

How were you losing sodium, potassium, and magnesium when you were hypothyroid? Were you acidic and when you urinate, you were excreting a lot of sodium and potassium and magnesium? And were you urinating a lot?

Haha! Yes, exactly—a Rube Goldberg machine. It was a decade ago when my injury was fresh and my understanding of the body was still in its infancy and looking back, I think when doctors told me my disease was impossible to overcome, but that they’d try to prevent it from getting any worse, it reinforced an already present no pain, no gain mentality that’s so ingrained in our culture that I believed if I ever had a chance of curing it, I’d have to go above and beyond, to extremes. Some believe it’s better to give it to a person straight than to give false hope, but how do they know it’s false hope? Because they don’t believe it’s possible? Anyhow, it saddens me to know your sister is struggling with illness and has resigned herself to suffering. I so wish I could help her. I’ve been trying hard to overcome my knee-jerk reaction to offer unsolicited advice. Have you found yourself having to do the same?

Perhaps an overly simplistic view, but I’m thinking it has something to do with its connection to the adrenals/mineralocorticoid production—mainly aldosterone and cortisol, but other hormones such as progesterone have mineralocorticoid function, too—because with adrenal dysfunction such as hyperaldosteronism, there’s potassium wasting and with hypoaldosteronism, there’s sodium wasting (like with Addison’s disease), which of course also affects blood pressure and is why hyper and hypotension are a symptom of hypothyroidism, IME. My mum’s blood pressure went from a high of 200/100 to as low as the 130s/80s and mine stabilized at 120/70 —I struggled to keep it above the low 90s/50—with thyroid (and also Progest-E, in my mum’s case). Others here can probably explain the hypothyroidism and mineral wasting connection far better than I have, and have far better studies that show the correlation, but here’s one of the first ones that came up when I did a quick Google search:

Thyroid function and serum electrolytes: does an association really exist? - PubMed

An association between thyroid function and electrolyte disorders seems to exist, although it is probably only relevant in marked hypo-/hyperthyroidism.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

In regards to pH, I struggled to get my urine pH below 8. In regards to excessive urination, I had an urgent need to pee (always clear/Brix reading of 0) whenever my sugars crashed, which always happened at certain times of the day. Same thing with needing to pee during the night. I had been getting up a couple of times a night ever since childhood, and more often after my spine collapsed, but stopped when I went fruitarian, which was when I finally realized I had been dealing with hypoglycemia since I was a child. What’s wild is my sugars were crashing at the same times of day that while growing up, my mum would get the shakes and need sugar fast or she’d pass out, and this is was what started happening to me back in 2019 with the daily adrenaline attacks/convulsions and syncope episodes. What’s more dangerous than having hypothyroidism was not knowing we had it. Oy.

 

[yerrag]

Here is a little written about this test. The analysis includes both indicators and so you can understand your condition.

I'm sorry but I tried reading the explanation but it's not written in a layman's language, or rather the author is speaking to medical students, which I'm not.

First, I don't know if the bicarbonate test you referred to is standard or actual. All I know is that I take my bicarbonate test through a venous drawing of blood. It does not give me any idea of pH though. Now if I wanted to get the pH through blood tests, I'd have to get it through arterial drawing of blood, which I haven't done because it's expensive and it's also very painful.

Which of the two tests did you take? I assume it is the venous blood test, and did that test allow you to calculate the pH, and if so, what is it?

I'm glad the aspirin helped with the polyuria. I think that it's helpful to know as you try to figure out what is the actual cause of your condition when you piece together all the symptoms and what you do to ease each of these symptoms.

I shared the above articles with you, by the way, as I thought it might be helpful to really help make certain that you were accurately identifying your condition as metabolic acidosis. One wrong self-diagnosis can easily lead me on to a wild goose chase. That is a case I see that gets in the way of our healing, either by our own hands or by that of a practitioner.

 

[Daniil]

I'm sorry but I tried reading the explanation but it's not written in a layman's language, or rather the author is speaking to medical students, which I'm not.

First, I don't know if the bicarbonate test you referred to is standard or actual. All I know is that I take my bicarbonate test through a venous drawing of blood. It does not give me any idea of pH though. Now if I wanted to get the pH through blood tests, I'd have to get it through arterial drawing of blood, which I haven't done because it's expensive and it's also very painful.

Which of the two tests did you take? I assume it is the venous blood test, and did that test allow you to calculate the pH, and if so, what is it?

I'm glad the aspirin helped with the polyuria. I think that it's helpful to know as you try to figure out what is the actual cause of your condition when you piece together all the symptoms and what you do to ease each of these symptoms.

I shared the above articles with you, by the way, as I thought it might be helpful to really help make certain that you were accurately identifying your condition as metabolic acidosis. One wrong self-diagnosis can easily lead me on to a wild goose chase. That is a case I see that gets in the way of our healing, either by our own hands or by that of a practitioner.

I provided this article just so you understand the subject matter. I usual use other sources of information, in Russian. If you are interested, I can provide them.

I took the analysis, where there were both tests. To correctly determine the need for analysis in the aggregate.

 

[yerrag]

I provided this article just so you understand the subject matter. I usual use other sources of information, in Russian. If you are interested, I can provide them.

I took the analysis, where there were both tests. To correctly determine the need for analysis in the aggregate.

Okay.

 

[yerrag]

Haha! Yes, exactly—a Rube Goldberg machine. It was a decade ago when my injury was fresh and my understanding of the body was still in its infancy and looking back, I think when doctors told me my disease was impossible to overcome, but that they’d try to prevent it from getting any worse, it reinforced an already present no pain, no gain mentality that’s so ingrained in our culture that I believed if I ever had a chance of curing it, I’d have to go above and beyond, to extremes. Some believe it’s better to give it to a person straight than to give false hope, but how do they know it’s false hope?

I know the feeling. But if, after being persistent with my primary doctor to allow me to take a 5hr oral glucose tolerance test, and being told that I have normal blood sugar, and not knowing any better and accepted it, I would be as sick as a puppy as i was then. I would not have self-diagnosed the results as a case of hypoglycemia, and would not have fixed it. I would still be struggling with once yearly flu, I would also be unable to run long distances without tiring out so easily at a short distance, and I would have become diabetic and obese, and I would be on the gym everyday on the treadmill because i'm told it is normal.

So, I think we both did our ourselves a big favor and did not accept the dead end pushed in our face.

Anyhow, it saddens me to know your sister is struggling with illness and has resigned herself to suffering. I so wish I could help her. I’ve been trying hard to overcome my knee-jerk reaction to offer unsolicited advice. Have you found yourself having to do the same?

It's all too common to reject unsolicited advice. I'm guilty of that and it's like a developed reflex. Like Jesus would say, it's even harder to accept advice from people that are your own kin. So I understand that helping my sister would be very difficult and I have given up on it. Not that I would be certain of helping her if she were more cooperative. But it's better to have someone coaching if one cannot be a good coach to oneself. And I know I can be a good coach because I am more methodical than her, and I can troubleshoot more than most people. As they say, I have a method to my madness lol.

But each person trying to heal himself of herself would see his or her persistence as a virtue called determination while others around would see that as a defect of being stubborn. As someone who believes himself to be persistent and not stubborn, and being seen as the other often, it makes me more capable of helping my sister. But then, she is in Canada and I'm in Manila, and the distance does not help. I can focus and it's hard for me to deal with personalities that beat around the bush, and whose thoughts wonder and can't center, so that's that. It can test my patience and I can get frustrated.

Some day I'll get back to helping her, or trying to. But now, I have to focus on my own, as that already takes a lot of work - research, experimenting, making mistakes and being on that wrong path for years even, to find out I was making a long detour. But as I learn from it, and when I have a good handle of my own ability to solve my own issues, I would be able to help her with not just a better approach and toolbox, but with a better temperament as well.

Besides, I had spent time caring for my parents, and now it's time to focus first on me.

Perhaps an overly simplistic view, but I’m thinking it has something to do with its connection to the adrenals/mineralocorticoid production—mainly aldosterone and cortisol, but other hormones such as progesterone have mineralocorticoid function, too—because with adrenal dysfunction such as hyperaldosteronism, there’s potassium wasting and with hypoaldosteronism, there’s sodium wasting (like with Addison’s disease), which of course also affects blood pressure and is why hyper and hypotension are a symptom of hypothyroidism, IME. My mum’s blood pressure went from a high of 200/100 to as low as the 130s/80s and mine stabilized at 120/70 —I struggled to keep it above the low 90s/50—with thyroid (and also Progest-E, in my mum’s case). Others here can probably explain the hypothyroidism and mineral wasting connection far better than I have, and have far better studies that show the correlation, but here’s one of the first ones that came up when I did a quick Google search:

Thanks. I'm glad you were able to lower your mom's bp to normal without prescription drugs. That is a very difficult thing to do. Most people, and I include people in this forum, would just resort to prescription drugs. As for your case where the bp is low and your job is to increase it, it is a different matter altogether. With the blood sugar history and spine history, it seems that a lot more work is involved getting you to get to a balanced state. At the same time, you learn a lot and become a good resource.

In regards to pH, I struggled to get my urine pH below 8. In regards to excessive urination, I had an urgent need to pee (always clear/Brix reading of 0) whenever my sugars crashed, which always happened at certain times of the day. Same thing with needing to pee during the night. I had been getting up a couple of times a night ever since childhood, and more often after my spine collapsed, but stopped when I went fruitarian, which was when I finally realized I had been dealing with hypoglycemia since I was a child. What’s wild is my sugars were crashing at the same times of day that while growing up, my mum would get the shakes and need sugar fast or she’d pass out, and this is was what started happening to me back in 2019 with the daily adrenaline attacks/convulsions and syncope episodes. What’s more dangerous than having hypothyroidism was not knowing we had it. Oy.

I don't know if you've browsed through the links I shared from Biomedx. To me, it is a fresh perspective and it's one of the few times, if not the only time, that I read about a very different yet well-explained of determining the acid-base balance state of the body. I'm sold on it and I'm observing my urine, saliva and breathing rate with a different take on it. I've gone thru a self-discovery phase about the use of the various electrolytes and the salts used, and it has led to think that I have done a poor job of distinguishing therapy from lifestyle. I've made into lifestyle what should be a temporary therapeutic intervention by way of supplementation and that has led my health to go rogue on me. So I'm circling back the wagon and getting back to basics.

I've found reason to believe more in following nature in how it packages minerals in fruits. It's not because the bible says so or whatever, but my discovery seems to lead me to following the beaten path provided my nature. Take potassium and magnesium and calcium and sodium and how they're packaged in nature. Knowing what I know now, I would as a lifestyle try to get all of them from nature. And I would be selective of how I take these in their packaging, preferring to not change their packaging. Take the case of bicarbonates. It's not found in fruits because it's not needed. I would sing praises of magnesium bicarbonate, saying it's the best form of magnesium. I would end up taking more bicarbonates than needed, when I would take mag bicarb to get my daily 400mg of magnesium. I was getting putatively very good urine pH values, and I wasn't aware of what harm it was doing because hell, what could be wrong with that? I had to go into one of my self-questioning moments when things aren't working, to realize that I may be peeing far too often than I should taking bicarbonates is such large amounts.

That mistakes was easy to overlook as it was hard to realize I was peeing that often. I wasn't counting was one reason, and another reason was that it just crept up on me without me really noticing how often I was peeing. Till I took count and holy smokes ! I was peeing 12x a day! Something is really wrong! And how long has this been going on? Duhh, maybe a year? Maybe twoi?

So now, I've begun to view fruit and vegetable juicing differently. We never had juicers in early time. Now that we have them, they should just be used as therapy, not as a lifestyle. But that isn't the case. We're just oranges, pineapple, carrots and drinking them everyday. Can't we be overloading on citric acid or ascorbic acid, or citric acid, or oxalic acid? What are the effects? Well, could it be that the ascorbic acid could interfere with oxidative processes like phagocytosis and the antioxidant is interfering with the respiratory burst of phagocytosis? Could the citric acid be binding to calcium and causing a lot of calcium to be excreted? Could the oxalic acid in carrots be causing calcium oxalate kidney stones because the excess would lead to such effects? But it's really okay if someone has an issue - cancer, bacterial, etc - that needs some therapeutic intervention and these juicing therapies can be availed of? But just because you can do it does not mean that you should do it.

But look a the coconut. In young of mature form, the juice, or what we call coconut water, is potassium rich but it doesn't come with the salt that can be harmful in excess. It comes with malic acid, which isn't so bad in the quantity it's in, and it's perfectly okay to drink the juice of one coconut. And bananas are safe eaten one after each meal.

I would rather take 1500 mg of potassium from 3 bananas than down 1500 mg of elemental potassium in the form of a drink of potassium bicarbonate or potassium citrate.

These are just my musings and I'm not saying I'm right but I could be nonetheless.