Was diagnosed Stage 3a in November 2021 (gfr 49’ .. went down to Stage 3b (gfr 42).six weeks later .. thankfully back up to 49. Had foam in my urine this last couple of days, too much protein 🤔. Suggestions as what I should eat, been really good with diet since diagnosis, lean white meats, fish, fresh berries, veggies, some nuts. .. so confused now as to what to do, am new to this disease and have been doing exactly what my professional dietician has told me to do.
I also occasionally eat bagels, brown bread with seeds and bran flakes.
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Venetian74
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Don't eat meat period. You can get your protein from beans and plants. You don't need a lot of protein. Start with a low dose of Lisinopril or some other ACE or ARB. Don't let them give you a high dose to begin with. That way, you will have just what you need and you can get used to whatever side affects, like light headed or whatever. That protein issue in the speed of the train as far as kidney failure goes and needs to be stopped now, but the issue I have had is that Docs are often to "one size fits all' experts and always was given a recommended dose of something, and then I would stop taking it because it made me feel like crap. finally a NEPH gave me a 2.5 mg of Lisinopril and low and behold that was enough ---instead of the 20 mg or even 10mg others had tried. Anyway, back to food. When it come to protein --salt/sodium intake goes hand in hand with it, so that has to be cut back on too, even though you might not be running high in the blood, but best to stay around 1500 mg a day or less. Those bagels and bread can have killer levels of sodium. Research says you should not consume more than 200 mg in on sitting. Those bagels have 400 or more. All the packaged/processed food, toss it. Again, the protein signals the speed of the train, and has to be slowed down or stopped.
White meat is still meat. Try cutting down to a couple times a week if you can't cut it out.
A plant-based diet is the best diet for CKD. There are plenty of kindle books on plant-based diets or vegetarian diets or you can check some out at your local library for recipes. The web is full of veggie recipes.
I wonder if your dietician was a renal dietician or a general dietician.
A plant-based diet doesn't mean you'll live off salad or eat like a bunny. You can have a lot of delicious foods and make wonderful kidney healthy meals.
My dietician is a renal dietician who comes with many qualifications and even more recommendations, I may be new to the disease but I know how to look after myself. I also know I don’t ‘have to live off salad and eat like a bunny’. I see you are in the USA, probably with a far greater reach for medical assistance but you have to pay: here in the UK medical care comes free so obviously we may wait a little longer than in other areas.
I’m just putting this out there, a little wait does not mean you get lesser healthcare, think this needs saying,
Otherwise thank you for your good wishes and the link to recipes.
Hi, I'm much the same kidney stage as you, 3 b I found out by accident around may or June 2021. My GP wasn't/ isn't interested and wouldn't have even told me. I had to kick up a big fuss to get a dietician referral,(not even a renal dietician) and then had to wait for about 9 months for that.I'm just wondering what your secret is, how you managed to get a renal dietician appointment within 6 months at stage 3b? Most GP's don't do anything until stage 4.
Hi Phoebe. First of all what country are you in?I’m in the UK, sounds like you may be too, viz your reference to ‘GP’. I paid for my renal dietician appointment £95 for an hour, worth every penny as far as I’m concerned, like you I only found out about the ckd when I was tested for something else and had no clue about what to eat. But I’ve had good service from the NHS too, have seen nephrologist who has passed on his recommendations to my GP, I am seeing her next week for follow up. So good luck, you really have to be your own advocate with ckd as it varies from person to person. My renal dietician is a moderater on a great Facebook Group, I won’t post the details of the same here but send me a private message if you’d like more details.
You can figure that eGFR is roughly the % of kidney function you've left. So 50% (you'll fluctuate blood-to-blood although the trend is usually down). Which probably means you're not booking wider health damage (heart being the most affected organ) from poor kidney function yet nor have you symptoms.
You're 74. The question is how long you figure you'd like to be around, God willing / Inshallah / fingers crossed? You could be a slow burner in CKD progression, live as you like and die of old age. Or you could progress fast and run into all the joys of advanced kidney disease sooner than you think.
Since it isn't possible to know how things will progress (I had "indolent" CKD right up to the moment when I didn't and lost 15 or so eGFR points in a year) you could take the aggressive view and decide you're going to spend your remaining kidney budget with tightened fist - in the hope that something else will get you in the end and that you live with health until then.
In that event, you would need to self-educate / get up to speed asap / start steering the ship, using your doc/nephr/RD as part of your crew. Doctors / dieticians, typically (in the experience of the many here, irrespective of the country they come from, I'm from Ireland) aren't up to speed on the latest advances. They frequently take a quite relaxed approach to disease progression. Your disease progression that is, not theirs.
Put it this way: we've all heard the "go easy on the red meat" advice. And had to find out for ourselves that the latest science says to stay clear of meat (and high protein plant). That your kidneys can't handle high levels of protein anymore and to keep stuffing it into your body only accelerates the disease.
Ask your RD what your daily protein budget ought to be. In grammes. 28grammes is my budget (64kg body weight) and a mere 100grammes of chicken (with it's 27 odd grammes of protein) would blow that budget entire whilst only giving me 239 kcals from my daily 2200 kcal requirement. How am I going to get the remainder of my calories without going over protein budget? Like, just about all food contains some level of protein..
Bye bye KFC.
It's not that I love the idea of not eating meat. But low / very low protein diets are the latest recommendation from an international panel of kidney experts headed up by the US based NKF. The aim is to slow down disease progression as much as you can. And that recommendation applies to the stage you are currently at. Carpe diem and all that!
The likelihood is that your RD is following an "old news" approach. It's very common. This approach takes little action at "early" (your) stage, whereas the latest approach is more aggressive in it's attempt to stave off disease progression.
You'd want to be finding out what parameters in your blood/urine results are out of kilter and taking action tailored to those results, at minimum. I was waay over in serum urea (BUN in the States) - probably double the top of range number. A few months on a very low protein, plant based diet and urea is middle of normal range and holding there. Urea is a toxin and known to progress kidney damage. It's a good idea to get it in range. But it was me who took action - not my nephrologist, who appeared happy to let things roll along as they were.
You spilling protein in your urine? Are you on ACE/ARB to reduce this. What about Dapaglifozin which slow the disease too but which I've only heard about from my neprologist recently.
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