What does a high potassium level reading in the blood mean or possibly indicate? my woman's dr. called her and asked her to come in to have another blood sample taken. she called me because she's nervous. i told her that i'd try to find out what it mean

The : The most common cause of a high potassium level is when blood cells are broken open during blood collection or storage and these ruptured cells spill potassium into the liquid part of blod that is used for testing. Sometimes a small needle used to draw the blood can cause this. Sometimes when the blood is left too long before being spun down into solid and liquid components, the blood cells will break, leaking potassium into the part of the blood that is analyzed. There are some diseases that can cause a high potassium level, like adrenal gland failure, kidney failure, some auto-immune diseases that affect muscle cells, and a bunch of other things that are pretty serious. So while most of the time it's a problem with the way the blood was collected, stored, or processed (which happens sometimes, and is no reflection on the skill of the people doing these tasks, ) there are a few things that are pretty serious that need to be ruled out before one can chalk up a high potassium level to lab error.

Depends: Potassium level should be fine with normal functioning kidneys. High potassium may be an indication that there is something wrong with the kidney function. Either that or she is eating too much potassium containing foods or drinks. It really depends on how high the potassium was and whether her other chemistries are ok.