Good morning, all, I realized I had ckd stage 3b around 9 months ago. I wasn’t alerted to this by primary health provider as a lot of you weren’t either. I have since changed doctors. I just wanted to update my caring friends on this forum that my last test results show continued improvement in my EGFR. The blood test done a couple of days ago showed that it has increased to an egfr of 53. When I started changing my diet it was at 33! I will see my neph next week to go over results. I feel very blessed and grateful to God and to all of you who have given such great guidance and help. Thank you so much! I am mostly vegetarian with salmon and tuna at times. I have increased my water and cut out soda almost completely. I still have a half can once in a great while. I do not eat perfectly and still eat some lightly salted potato chips which I am trying to cut out.
I had covid last month but thank the Lord it didn’t affect my test results. I did realize a couple of weeks ago that I was actually drinking too much water. I was drinking 14+ cups a day and was having swelling I couldn’t get rid of so through prayer I realized that I needed to cut down on water and I’m not swelling much at all now. Thank you for reading this long post. God bless you folks! 🙏🏻
Written by
Hello67
To view profiles and participate in discussions please or .
Well done. As I've reported on here a few times, my mum has increased her eGFR from 36 (post nephrectomy 5y ago) to 76 latest purely by diet and wellbeing. Her only remaining issue is increasing proteinuria albeit at levels below which her nephro is concerned.
Hi userotc, is it possible to share the naturopathy name and phone number that your mom used that helped her to improve her health? I think it is my next step to take is to see a reliable naturopathy
Hi. Mum hasn't used an external naturopath as I've trained as a naturopathic nutritionist for almost 3y (I graduate Sep and will specialised in a different area to renal). If you wish, I can send via pm a link to former students of my college and you can check suitability or there are other sources eg via website of key organisation BANT.
Thank you userotc but I was looking for the protocol your mom followed and not to see unknown naturopathy. It seems to me your mom followed home advice remedy and guidance by you. I looked at BANT you mentioned, it seems in India! Is that correct? Also now I can see that your mom was ckd stage 3 and my observation that patients in stage 3 or less can improve with diet and natural methods, which is not the case for stages 4 and 5.
This is BANT with practitioners bot of page bant.org.uk/ I know there's differences between stage 3 and later for various things, not sure about natural improvement. Got a link?
That's wonderful news! I've done many of the same things( no red meat,drink plenty of water,etc.) and have seen an improvement as well. Wishing you continued progress. (PS your pup is too cute!❤️)
I’m so glad that a lot of us are improving our numbers through diet and hydration! It gives us all hope & keeps us on the path of healthy eating. Thank you, she’s our 7 yr old baby! And yours is so adorable!! 🙏🏻
I didn’t know you could drink too much but now I do. I can see drinking even more if as you say you’re sweating copious amounts through intense exercise. Hydration from water is essential though. My walking isn’t intense. Lol
Actually although I'm glad your e GFR has improved but so has mine from 8 to 32 without dieting so it might be something that can just happen for numerous and varied reasons. I'm just saying that prayer is not really a medically approved treatment and it is much better to be advised by medically qualified professional. I glad for you though.
Prayer is what gets me through each day. We lost our son 8 months ago and I don’t know how I would have gone on without prayer and a relationship with the Lord. But that’s just my opinion. I don’t mean to push my faith on anyone else. I’m so sorry if I offended you. I’m so glad your EGFR has improved so much! God bless
You haven't offended me as I too have faith but it must never be thought to replace considered professional advice. Swelling can be a sign something else is wrong and I hope your Nephrologist helps but it may not be to do with water consumption at all.
I smiled at your comment I too am a person of faith and three years ago my GFR had decreased significantly. Doctors could not find the cause and I just turned to the Lord Jesus and followed a low protein diet. Praise God that my GFR has now increased 14 points! I follow the wisdom God gives me with regard to supplements and food to support kidney function but I know it is the grace of God that has been sustaining me. I am 73 years old and I thank God for every second of every day that He blesses me!
May God abundantly bless and keep you in good health
Thank you so much for your reply and testimony. Even your name on here is a testimony to your faith, I love that! He is the great Physician. I too give Him all glory. Praise the Lord you are better and I pray you continue to improve.
Re " medically qualified", I personally don't think that must be prerequisite. Many/most medics hide behind their medical qualifications whilst giving a poor service to patients.
One (of several) personal examples is my mum's nephro. When her eGFR was 36, he offered nil advice and stated he'd be happy if it stayed there. My dad (who attended the consultation) disagreed and said we would get it much higher. By natural means, WE have gradually increased it by 111% to 76 although the nephro seems to be taking the credit in subsequent reports!. Strangely he's never asked how WE have done it.
More important than medical qualifications imo is client care. That is one reason why I chose to train as a naturopathic practitioner (qualifying soon). Each consultation lasts 1h minimum rather than the 10 mins for a GP and 3-5 mins for mum's nephro "consultations".
So I'm happy for your relative but being an inpatient for several weeks in an Aa&E hospital then the County Renal Unit perhaps gives me the insight to say without the NHS I'd have died and I was always listened too and given great information and care. So it's not the same for everyone. Your post is good news for your relative but otherwise it is anecdotal and has no substantied evidence.
Actually your NHS experience is also anecdotal without scientifically substantiated evidence that we can see. So I don't know where you're going with that.
Anyhow my point in reply to your earlier post is that medical qualifications shouldnt be the key determinants of good healthcare.
Medics are often not the gods that many believe and, besides my immediate family experiences, others on this forum have similar ones. I'm glad your individual experience was good but trust you accept there are many bad experiences too.
Hi medway-lady. I was looking for a case that eGFR improved from less than 20 to higher number like your case. Interestingly you said it did improve without any diets and went up from 8 to 32! Can you share your specific sickness ? Some of us in this blog had high blood pressure for years, and some had autoimmune system disorder. I have both. Both caused damage to kidney that is hard to regain function. Did your doctor find out your specific cause? Thanks
Yes an Acute Kidney Injury the subject of a Serious NHS Incident Report. In Oct 2018. I have a copy of the report. I was admitted following a routine blood test by my RA consultant and was put in a side room as they said "try not to worry we'll get the ICU team down to talk to you shortly. They came in their smart black uniforms with the red bands and again "don't worry we're going to look after you". Thing was I felt normal and was sure they had made a mistake and got me muddled up with someone else. But they kept me in and said " we will find out what's wrong" Anyway after 3 weeks and visits every day from the RA doctors and nurses and the Nephrologist and a Urologist and then they gathered to say " " Your function is 8 GFR and 'we've looked at the likely, then the unlikely but now we are into the haven't got a clue and this is so rare we don't know what it i and will you do a genetic test? I asked them would they just tell me if it was Cancer and they said absolutely not, nor PCKD nor related to any known kidney disease so it was rare and could only be down to a medical injury and would I give permission for a paper to be written about it. I do know the drug now and its going to go further in due course. But now I don't feel at all ill and really never did, my potassium count is normal as is all the rest of the things they test for every 3 months but my kidneys are 25% permeant dead and the rest just doesn't work. RA did and does give me a higher chance of blood clots andI did have them back in 2016 but it is controlled well and I am diagnosed with Auto Immune Disease but it didn't do my kidneys in. I am probably lucky and admit is was hard for a along while and to this day I can't ramble as I used too or walk up Snowden but nevertheless life is good and I've been told "just keep active and well hydrated and no grapes, bananas or baked beans". I see myNephrologist every 3 months and that is the only real input I want or need from the NHS and without doubt had they not acted so fast I'd have died in Oct 2018. You can pm if you want but kidney disease is not a death sentence and it might be different for me as one day I was right as normal and next bang in hospital. I also have because they are with a Barrister a copy of all my medical records and can clearly see that there was no indication this could happen or would happen it was purely down to a very rare adverse reaction.
Thank you medway-lady for sharing your details. Your case is really unusual and I am glad your egfr is 32 now and hope to improve more. If the doctors wanted to write a paper about your case, it means it was really rare! When my neph said he did not know why my kidney deteriorated, he suggested kidney biopsy to find out and I did it. It is risky somewhat to do kidney biopsy because it may cause kidney bleeding, but it is necessary for the doctor to you the reason of kidney deterioration. The biopsy revealed autoimmune system disorder of attacking the healthy kidney fine blood vessels that are damaged and don’t filter anymore. I had a second opinion and treatment was to suppress the autoimmune system so it won’t attack the kidney, by infusion of a drug called Rituxan once or twice per year. The drug worked and the autoimmune system is not attacking the kidney , which is great as it may not work in some people. But disadvantage is that my immune system is weak and the neph warned To get around sick people as any virus will make me vert sick. Thanks p
I had 2 biopsies, 3 months apart and lying for 4 hours afterwards was worse.lolRituxan is used I think in RA but I have Orencia (Abatercept) and Azathyoprine as well. .Both immune related and work well for me and I know are used after transplant surgery but so far my AID has not affected my kidneys although its had my thyroid, obviously the RA and lungs and blood. But on the plus side not diabetic so no worry about food. lol x One very odd thing and the Nephrologist is really interested in was I had Covid in January as and Clinical Extremely Vulnerable I was given the anti body transfusion. I had a blood test the following week and my function had gone from 26 to 32 ! weird but as he said a lot of medications start off for one thing and then get used for many and as time goes on it may just be that the infusion has a really good side effect. Who knows ?
PS I was given so many vaccines before the Orencia as it makes me vulnerable but despite 5 Covid vaccines and mask wearing etc etc I still got Covid and now I'm blooming glad I did.
Wow medeay-lady, you went through a lot and I am glad your egfr is now 32 after all these medications. I hope you improve even more. No wonder the docs want to make a paper out of your case. Take care.
I do think that you must be aware that mine is not anecdotal but a experienced narrative. I don't claim to cure or improve anything which is your anecdotal comments as you've not posted anything about diagnosis or how you miraculously made such a huge improvement in your relatives GFR. I have an Aquired Kidney Injury caused by a prescribed medication ( a very common one in the UK) and just happened to be the very rare person (there is only a handful of us in the UK and under 100 worldwide) that had a reaction to it. I spent weeks in hospital, had a CT scan, biopsy, MRI, flow tests and genetic testing as well. I have a diagnosis and no diet can bring my kidneys back to life as they are mostly just dead. My diagnosis of CKD became about as over time the AKI (acute) becomes CKD (cronic). So forgive me but thats why I'm sceptical as to your view that you don't have to be medical, as in my experience it was the medical help that saved my life and not a diet. So once again ?perhaps you'd explain the diagnosis and how exactly you improved your relatives GFR?s
I completely agree with you. Of course, eating habits are really important, as well as in any kind of disease. But the results differ for every person. So likewise, I wonder too, what is your diagnosis? The reason for your kidney disease?
Because eGFR is easily affected by many things, such as working out, dehydration, and so on. So honestly increase in your eGFR with diet is really not enough information. If you can share more about your disease then maybe some other people can benefit from your situation more.
For example, I have FSGS, and I really do not think that eating pescetarian may not lead to an improvement in my situation.
Good morning tas1kubra, my neph thinks it is because of blood pressure and ibuprofen and that class of drugs. I never took too much ibuprofen etc but she said that some people’s kidneys are very sensitive to it and other people can basically eat them and not be affected. Also I believe that I had high bp for years and we all thought it was white coat syndrome so I wasn’t treated with medication for a long time. And, I believe that diet soda caused damage too because I was drinking too much of it most days. I also needed to lose weight so I’ve lost over 30lbs, unfortunately I still have some more to lose. From what I’ve read weight affects GFR too. I don’t know exactly why my numbers have improved by 20 points but I know that God is answering prayers and leading me to knowledge about what I can do to improve. I’m so sorry that your cause can’t be helped by a food plan. I didn’t post to upset anyone or to brag, I only post to encourage and uplift others because I was encouraged when I came to this site and was given good guidance which I will always be grateful for. I was so afraid and upset and my primary care np had not even told me about my sudden decline in GFR. I hope I have explained more about my disease & what caused it. Thank you for your reply. God bless
Hi hello67, thanks for your post. But it is not enough to share that your eGFR had improved by 20 points, it is more important to share what was your egfr at when you started and what it became at now and in what period of time. That is why I read all posts to see when and if , I can see improvement in my eGFR. To everyone please share specific details . Thank you all.
Content on HealthUnlocked does not replace the relationship between you and doctors or other healthcare professionals nor the advice you receive from them.
Never delay seeking advice or dialling emergency services because of something that you have read on HealthUnlocked.
I too am a person of faith and three years ago my GFR had decreased significantly. Doctors could not find the cause and I just turned to the Lord Jesus and followed a low protein diet. Praise God that my GFR has now increased 14 points! I follow the wisdom God gives me with regard to supplements and food to support kidney function but I know it is the grace of God that has been sustaining me. I am 73 years old and I thank God for every second of every day that He blesses me!
CKD & autoimmune disease
What's required for a diagnosis of CKD?
CKD and Creatinine stages
Assistance required - CKD (FSGS)
CKD minerals and labs?
