The Ewha Medical Journal
Ewha Womans University School of Medicine
Case Report

A Case of Hypokalemic Familial Periodic Paralysis

Kyu Nam Kim, Jae Kyung Noh, Young Chai Kim, Soon Nam Lee, Nan Ho Kyung, Lee Gap Park
Corresponding author: Lee Gap Park. Department of Internal Medicine, College of Medicine, Ewha Womans University, Korea.

Copyright ⓒ 1984. Ewha Womans University School of Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Abstract

A case of hypokalemic familial periodic paralysis is presented and the litures are reviewed. A 15-year-old boy was admitted to Ewha Womans University Hospital with chief complaints of paralysis of both extremities and trunk on awaking in the morning. He had a history of quadriplegia, 8 months ago. Laboratory study revealed a hypokalemia(1.6mEq/L) and biopsy specimen taken from the gastrocnemius muscle showed mild vacuolization. After treatment with potassium chloride, paralysis was completely recovered.