My son has been having a potassium deficiency since starting on Kaletra a couple of years ago.He gets so bad that without taking three ground up potassium every hour for three hours he can't even get up he is so weak. He has diarrhea often, is this the cause of lost potassium? All my reading has only confused me more as Kaletra seems to have potassium in it? April

Thanks for your post.

I'm not aware of any data that points to potassium deficiency being caused directly by lopinavir/ritonavir (Kaletra), though it makes sense to me that if your son has a lot of diarrhea, this alone can cause low potassium levels (hypokalemia).

Diarrhea that's this bad needs to be addressed aggressively-- assuming that other causes (like infection) are ruled out, then antidiarrheal medications (like Lomotil) can be tried, but ultimately this side effect might prompt a switch to an alternative medication.

I hope this helps, BY