We all know that both chronic and acute forms of rejection can happen after transplant. Although most incidents are treatable, we would all benefit from avoiding "risk factors" if possible.
It seems helpful for us to learn from each other what events or behavior you think "triggered" your kidney function to decline (increase creatinine and decrease GFR)? It doesn't have to meet the rejection criteria (30% change) but ANY worsening in number.
increase in years away from transplant
skipping immuno medicines
eating foods that interact with tacrolimus
taking TB drugs
Thank you for sharing. Did you respond to treatment? How long did the treatment take to normalize the spike?
Hi LisaSnow, 2.5 months after my spouse had his transplant, he had his first rejection a year ago this month. The head person of transplant, a surgeon seems to agree with my spouse that the native kidney cyst bursting was the catalyst causing the new kidney to go into low grade rejection. My husband has genetic PKD (polycystic kidney disease) and this cyst burst was his first ever in life, in the past a cyst would leak. For 2 wks he had blood clotting and blood in urine though new kidney was fine and afterwards the new kidney went into rejection. So high dose of IV of steroids in the hosp for a week was administered and weeks of prednisone high dose at home stopped the rejection. WE know the old kidneys could have a cyst burst, but as time goes on probably not due to shrinking of size of less function of them. I hope this does not happen again to my husband. I wish you the best.
So sorry to hear that. I hope he had responded nicely to treatment and the graft recovered nicely. It seems so important to maintain the best health possible for all of us, as any infection or inflammatory processes can trigger the immune system to attack the graft.
What is sad is the person with PKD has no control if and when a kidney cyst bursts. These PKD kidneys were not large enough to warrant removal when the donated kidney was put into his body. Just the way it is. He was doing superbly before the cyst burst.
How is he with creatinine now?
It has taken a year for his creatinine to be 'normal' and it is now. After the low grade rejection Feb 2019 through Jan2020 he experienced severe low hemoglobin for over 6 months, then that go resolved, then in August through last month very very low white blood count due to CMV virus and that is now resolved. Last month at his transplant dr appt was his first good appointment results with blood work labs in a year. It has been a rough year and things are slowly improving. He just turned 60 and other than this kidney disease he is healthy.
Things to do to prevent kidney rejection 
Creatinine vs gfr 
Medication Side Effects - mitigating or eliminating
creatinine 2
Switching to Belatacept
