My Chronic Kidney Disease
A personal, non-medical, blog chronicling the experiences and learnings of a regular, healthy, person diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) in 2009 at age 36. Feel free to participate with your own experiences and remember that works or fails for me won't necessarily be right for you. Please don't take anything here as medical advice and always consult a doctor.
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Serum creatinine back to 2.0 mg / dL. Why?
I don't think my kidney function has improved but this result may at least mean it's not worsening as much as I thought. My current theories for the results are:
1. I have been exercising less lately. Perhaps the elevated creatinine levels were due to doing more exercise.
2. Inaccurate test results!
The next time I test, I'll try doing more exercise beforehand to see how much that seems to impact the results.
Current lifestyle/diet: No meat or chicken, low cheese/milk (some yogurt), low wheat, oats+berries+chia+olive oil for breakfast, fish a few of times a month, commonly eat: lentils, vegetables, fruits, potatos, rice, corn tortillas, peanuts,
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
2021 Serum Creatinine rising
Since 2016 my serum creatinine has been rising at a surprisingly constant rate (see graph), suggesting a progressively declining kidney function, reaching a peak of 2.7mg/dL (Estimated GPR 26 mL/min/1.73m2, stage IV) 6 weeks ago (13-May-2021).
Shocked and depressed at this decline I met with a new nephrologist to see what she recommends to reduce the rate of decline. She didn't really offer any new advice but ordered more tests which I did on 23-Jun-2021. She also weighed me, 78kg, which is lighter than I expected (I'm 1.82m tall). I have been exercising almost daily the last year or so, so I guess I've lost a few kilos of body fat.
The tests on 23-Jun-2021 showed a creatine level of 2.4 ml/dL which is a change
in the right direction. The things I did between the two last tests which may
have impacted the result were:
- Watch my diet carefully, eating very few animal
proteins and especially avoiding cheese (high salt).
- Meditate with afirmations
in the form of questions like "Why is my serum creatinine at 1.8?" (I didn't hit
that target obviously), "Why do my kidneys work so well?", "Why are my kidneys
no longer inflammed?", etc.
I also tested for Bicarbonate and Vitamin D. Both were within normal range, though the Vitamin D was on the low side and I certainly have the symptons of Vitamin D deficiency (fatigue).
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
Chronic Kidney Disease Research Community
Monday, June 10, 2019
2019 Blood test results - more kidney function degradation :(
Wednesday, February 13, 2019
Kidney degradation not inevitable?
The following article says a recent study shows that while kidney function tends to decline with age in more developed societies, this is not necessarily the case in less developed societies. That is, it seems like there may be something (or many things) about our "advanced" lifestyle which causes kidney degradation with age. No clues as to what that might be yet but adopting a more "primitive" diet (less processed food, more fruits and vegetables) certainly seems like it would probably benefit the kidneys.
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2019/02/13/loss-of-kidney-function-in-old-age-is-not-inevitableSince being diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) almost 10 years ago I have fortunately so far managed to avoid further measurable kidney degradation. My diet has basically been:
- Relatively small amounts of animal proteins (no beef/pork/chicken/etc., fish/seafood maybe twice a month, eggs once week, yogurt and cheese a couple of times a week, no milk).
- Limited wheat (I found that wheat seems to cause me abdominal swelling).
- Lots of fruit, vegetales and nuts (bananas, avocados, broccoli, carrots, apples, almonds, unsalted peanuts, beetroot, lettuce, tomato, beans, etc.).
- Low sugar and salt (no added salt in cooking. Avoid high salt foods).
- A certain amount of starchy foods every day: Rice, corn, oatmeal, sweet potatoes, potatoes.