I was recently put on Calcitriol and vitamin D. I have been reading up on it and as always get conflicting reports....but what I did get from it is there needs to be some balance or it could kill you. Not something I’m comfortable with. I have sent a note to my doctor to explain this more to me. If any of you are on this...what can you tell me.
Doctor also did not give any instructions on diet restrictions..if any. I’m not sure what to do. I took scary diabetic drugs...that’s why I’m in trouble with my kidneys...so not too willing to “just” take something because my doctor says so.
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Norma519
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My best advice is for you to go to drugs.com and enter all of your medications on their My Med List feature. When you are done you'll get information on all drug and food interactions that are classified as moderate and severe as well as other pertinent information. You can then develop questions to ask your physicians to guide you through the maze. Additionally, they have an app for your phone. I use it and if and when a physician prescribes a new med I check it out first and not have to worry later about spending money on a script that will cause me issues down the line. You can also sign up for medication news and updates and stay on top of your health issue news.Best of luck.
Attached is a link to Davita on Vitamin D Deficiency. I take 2000IU of D3 per Doctor instructions. I have neuropathy (unrelated to CKD) and Neurologist is aware of the Vitamin D. davita.com/diet-nutrition/a...
HI Norma, You need to have confidence in your doctors. If you do not, find a new doctor. This is the best thing to help yourself. You should not need to second guess the doctor. There is a good and bad for Vitamin D. Too much and it is dangerous, not enough and you will feel tired. I am on Vit D, 2000 four times a week, and 4000 two days, per my doctor. I will test for the level in three weeks and then if I am back to a better level, I will go back down.
As Mr. Kidney said, learn about the drugs you are on. You had issues with a diabetic drugs and I am just curious what you were on.
I went to drugs .com all it told me was contact your health care provider. I have sent a note to my doctor through a patient portal. I don’t think it is a bad idea to ask questions. I was on metformin. When ever I ask my doctor about what else we can do ..she just kept telling me...nope this is the only way. I have people on different boards tell me how wrong I was about metformin. All I know is I had a sever reaction to it and it killed my kidneys. It is a dangerous drug. I took it believing it would help. Now I am going through all this testing and taking more drugs...and this didn’t need to happen. My doctor took matters into her own hands and decided not to tell me about my kidney problems until it was too late. I fired her. It’s not that I don’t trust the nephrologist...but if one doctor will do this to me..why won’t someone else. So silly or not I am going to ask...I will not take scary drugs “ just” be cause they say I should. And when words like mortality and death keep coming up in everything I read. I want to know more.
I'm not sure how you received that message on drugs.com. There is a qualifier that all places use to contact your physician before you make changes on your own. We say the same thing here. If you enter all of your meds you will get a list of interactions possible and that is what you discuss with your physician. As I previously stated, I've used it for a long time and recommend it because it's a great tool to help you become/stay proactive and learn to control your health issues.Unless you know the right questions to ask, many doctors aren't forthcoming until something happens to the patient's health.
This is mainly a related question to those that have replied to Norma. Whilst I completely understand why you generally suggest she works with her doctor, there are some key reasons not to including:
1. A lack of confidence from past experience where a medic is at the root of her health problem. I can relate to that, as per my Profile.
It's often not practical to hire and fire.
2. Medics have little/no training on supplementation as I understand it.
In view of this, what's wrong in self-supplementing vit D and cofactor K2 as long as you regularly TEST serum D and kidney levels? Or working with a kidney-friendly naturopath?
Norma - I've assumed the advice given by your doc is because your serum D is low? What level?
I well remember how I felt when my kidneys plummeted. I was stressed and anxious. I frenetically tried to find solutions that would improve my renal function. Now, looking back, I wish I had been able to be calmer...
I, too, had been placed on metformin after I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. I had a lot of trouble with metformina, a lot of diarrhea. My renal function was normal when I was placed on metformin. It suddenly plummeted into Stage IV toward the end of that year.
I was sent to a nephrologist. He was able to get my renal function back up to Stage IIIb. He also stabilized them at that level for several years. I asked him several times if metformin had caused the deterioration in my renal function, was it hard on my kidneys? He consistently said that metformin is hard on kidneys but glucose is harder.
Fortunately, after attending a couple of diabetes education classes, I learned how to manage my diabetes with diet and exercise. My primary care internist pulled me off the metformin about a year after I was initially diagnosed. At that time my renal function was back up to Stage IIIb.
Unfortunately my renal function remained stable at stage IIIb for only a few years. It then plummeted into stage V renal failure. That was early January 2017. It has improved some over the last 4 years.
Today I have 15-18% renal function. That puts me in low Stage IV. I’m not on dialysis. I have been approved for a kidney transplant. I was actively waitlisted on January 10, 2020. I’m now awaiting a deceased donor kidney.
Key points related to my renal journey:
1. It was critical to have quality physicians in whom I had trust and with whom I could work.
2. It has taken a medical team to help me accomplish my current outcomes. My team members need to work together. So they need to communicate with one another and share lab results, etc.
3. It’s critical that I understand my medical conditions and how they are presenting in my body specifically. I ask my physicians to recommend websites I can access as well as online patient education websites. I also expect that a portion of every appointment is devoted to patient education.
4. Both my doctors and my pharmacist provide patient education about all meds I take. I also visit drugs.com as others have mentioned.
5. It’s my job to do what my doctors need me to do to effectuate the best treatment outcomes possible.
6. Ultimately my nephrologist expected much better outcomes with my renal treatment plan. He did his best. I certainly did my best. And yet my kidneys deteriorated. Medicine is NOT an exact science. There are no guarantees with medical care. So, I find good physicians who will work as a team. I work closely with them. I hope for the best. But I prepare for all plausible outcomes. Then I focus on living my finding purpose in every day...
And finally, I’m convinced that metformin did NOT cause the deterioration in my renal function.
It absolutely is your right to ask questions with your Doctor. To understand possible side effects. I was put on Calcitrol but not with Vitamin D. I stayed on the Calcitrol
for a month and then got off. My /body did not react to it in a positive manner.I talked
to my doctor if something is not right He will suggest a different medication.
You have to have good communication with your Doctor. I went through several Doctors to find the right fit for me. I also agree with you some medications affect
people differently. The Metforim could have a bad effect for you, and not someone
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