Hi,
Sorry to hear your friend is so sick. Before I read the whole message I was thinking "low potassium" based on her symptoms. I concur with the other posts - your friend needs to read a LC book cover to cover. Also Half Salt or No Salt should be added to the diet immediately, but I'm sure the Dr has taken care of that. Low potassium can, I believe, lead to an electrolyte imbalance, which can be life threatening. Doreen where are you? Help on the potassium/electrolyte balance relationship please. Am I way off base?
Hopefully your friend can ditch her Dr & find one who is supportive of her efforts to get off Rx meds. There are good docs out there & she will need less & less meds as she loses weight the LC way.
My own anecdotal evidence re potassium deficiencies:
Initially the Atkin's program gave me more energy but I began to get tired, headaches, then deep fatigue. Finally figured out I might need more potassium.
thanks to this site & Dr Atkin's book
After buying & using Half Salt my energy and health improved. Then, dummy me went out of town on vacation for 8 days, didn't think about taking potassium with me & started using Mrs Dash instead of HalfSalt in omelets, tuna etc.
About the time I came home fatigue & headaches set in. I continued to use Mrs D (tasted so good) instead of the HalfSalt in my salt shaker. Last Wed I began to use NoSalt & now I'm feeling much better, headaches gone, more energy. Lesson I learned: Don't underestimate my body's need for potassium; 7 days was too long to be without potassium chloride. I've got both HalfSalt (table salt/potassium chloride combo) and NoSalt (pure potassium chloride), depending on what my needs are. Just use it like table salt.
Regards, Ruth