A Matter of Life: National Kidney Month, Donor Month, and the Donor’s Dilemma

Our old friend, Leesa Thompson …. Wait a minute! I don’t mean you’re old, Leesa. I mean we’ve had a couple of guest blogs from you before. Please forgive me. Anyway, Leesa has brought another guest blog to me. This one is perfect for National Kidney Month and a lovely way to end this celebratory month. Take it away, Leesa…

National Kidney Month is observed annually in March to raise awareness about kidney health, kidney disease prevention, and the importance of early detection and treatment. During this month-long observance, various organizations, including the National Kidney Foundation (NKF) and the American Kidney Fund (AKF), as well as healthcare providers and advocates, work to educate the public about kidney health and the risk factors associated with kidney disease. The primary goals of National Kidney Month are to:

1. Raise Awareness: National Kidney Month aims to increase awareness about the importance of kidney health and the prevalence of kidney disease, which affects millions of people worldwide. By educating the public about the risk factors, symptoms, and complications of kidney disease, advocates hope to encourage individuals to take proactive steps to protect their kidney health.

2. Promote Prevention: Kidney disease is often preventable or manageable when detected early. National Kidney Month provides an opportunity to promote healthy lifestyle habits, such as maintaining a balanced diet, staying hydrated, exercising regularly, managing blood pressure and blood sugar levels, and avoiding tobacco use, which can help reduce the risk of developing kidney disease.

3. Support Patients: National Kidney Month also serves as a platform to show support for individuals living with kidney disease and those who have undergone kidney transplantation. It highlights the importance of access to quality healthcare, treatment options, and support services for kidney disease patients and their families. Throughout National Kidney Month, activities may include educational events, screenings, fundraisers, advocacy campaigns, and social media initiatives aimed at raising awareness and promoting kidney health. By participating in these activities and spreading the word about kidney health, individuals can help reduce the burden of kidney disease and improve outcomes for those affected by this condition.

Donate Life Month is an observance held annually in April [Gail here: more on that next month] to raise awareness about organ donation and encourage individuals to register as organ, eye, and tissue donors. During Donate Life Month, various events, campaigns, and educational initiatives are organized by organizations such as Donate Life America, transplant centers, and other healthcare organizations to promote the importance of organ donation and transplantation. The primary goal of Donate Life Month is to inspire people to make the decision to become organ donors and to discuss their wishes with their families. By increasing awareness about the critical need for organ donors and dispelling myths and misconceptions surrounding donation, advocates hope to save more lives and improve the quality of life for individuals awaiting life-saving transplants. Throughout the month of April, activities may include community outreach events, educational workshops, social media campaigns, donor registration drives, and storytelling initiatives featuring transplant recipients, donor families, and healthcare professionals. These efforts aim to highlight the profound impact of organ donation on individuals and communities and to encourage meaningful conversations about donation and transplantation. Participation in Donate Life Month provides an opportunity for individuals to learn more about the donation process, the importance of registering as a donor, and the incredible gift of life that organ donation represents. By engaging with the Donate Life community and supporting initiatives to raise awareness, individuals can help to increase the number of registered donors and ultimately save more lives through organ transplantation.

Becoming a living kidney donor is a decision that carries significant weight, both for the donor and the recipient. Understanding the full spectrum of advantages and disadvantages associated with this altruistic act is essential for individuals contemplating such a profound gesture, particularly in light of the critical shortage of available kidneys for transplantation.

On the positive side, the primary benefit of being a living kidney donor lies in the opportunity to save a life. With approximately 100,000 individuals approved for kidney transplants in the United States alone, the demand for organ donors far exceeds the available supply. By offering one of their kidneys to someone suffering from kidney failure, donors directly impact the recipient’s health and lifespan. This act of selflessness not only saves a life but also brings immeasurable satisfaction and a deep sense of fulfillment to the donor, knowing they’ve made a tangible and potentially life-saving difference in another person’s life. Moreover, the impact of a kidney donation extends beyond the individual recipient to their family, friends, and community. It fosters a culture of compassion and generosity, inspiring others to consider organ donation as a means of giving back and making a positive impact on society. Additionally, undergoing the rigorous medical evaluation process before donation can lead to early detection and treatment of previously undiagnosed health issues in the donor, ensuring the best possible outcome for both parties involved. Furthermore, living kidney donors typically experience minimal long-term health effects, with studies indicating that they generally enjoy good health and life expectancy post-donation. This reassurance can alleviate concerns about the potential impact on the donor’s own health and well-being. Additionally, the experience of being a living kidney donor can lead to personal growth and a deeper appreciation for one’s own health. Donors often report feeling a renewed sense of purpose and gratitude for their own well-being, inspiring them to prioritize self-care and adopt healthier lifestyle habits.

However, despite the numerous benefits associated with being a living kidney donor, there are also potential drawbacks and considerations to be mindful of. Donating a kidney involves undergoing surgery, which carries inherent risks such as bleeding, infection, and adverse reactions to anesthesia. While serious complications are rare, donors must be prepared for the physical discomfort and recovery period following surgery, which may necessitate several weeks of rest and limited activity. Furthermore, the emotional and psychological impact of being a living kidney donor should not be underestimated. Donors may experience a range of emotions, including anxiety, guilt, and worry about the recipient’s well-being, as well as concerns about their own health and future. It is essential for donors to have access to adequate support and counseling throughout the donation process to address any emotional challenges and ensure their well-being. Additionally, there may be practical and logistical considerations to contend with, such as arranging time off from work for surgery and recovery, coordinating travel and accommodations if the donor and recipient are not in the same location, and navigating financial expenses related to the donation process. Donors should carefully plan and prepare for these logistical challenges to minimize stress and ensure a smooth donation experience.

In summary, while being a living kidney donor offers the opportunity to save a life and make a profound difference in someone’s life, it is essential for individuals to carefully weigh the potential risks and benefits before making this decision. By thoroughly considering all aspects of the donation process and seeking support from medical professionals and support networks, potential donors can make an informed decision that aligns with their values and priorities, ultimately contributing to the greater good and leaving a lasting legacy of compassion and generosity.

Thank you for closing out National Kidney Month and easing us into National Donate Life Month, Leesa.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Support Groups

I was speaking with my junior high school buddy, Joanne, the other morning. We don’t speak that often, but our conversations do tend to be at least an hour. Yes, this is the same Joanne I wrote about in Cancer Dancer. She told me about the support groups she belongs to. No, not Facebook groups, but zoom groups that started out as in person support groups and what she gets from them. 

I soon realized I’ve written pretty much only about the Facebook support groups. Well, it seems it’s time to write about in person or zoom groups. Some of these support groups were solely in person until the pandemic began, at which time they began offering zoom meetings. Some offer both: in person and zoom meetings. 

As someone who is a loner, I wanted to know what I could tell my readers about the benefits of support groups. MayoClinic to the rescue! 

“Benefits of participating in a support group may include: 

Feeling less lonely, isolated or judged 

Reducing distress, depression, anxiety or fatigue 

Talking openly and honestly about your feelings 

Improving skills to cope with challenges 

Staying motivated to manage chronic conditions or stick to treatment plans 

Gaining a sense of empowerment, control or hope 

Improving understanding of a disease and your own experience with it 

Getting practical feedback about treatment options 

Learning about health, economic or social resources” 

They do have a lot to offer. My buddy also mentioned how good she felt when another member of the support group said something like, “As Joanne mentioned….” She felt like she helped someone. I can see that. 

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels.com

What about medical support groups? Are they different in any way? According to HelpGuide: 

“When you’re going through a challenging or traumatic time, family members and friends may sympathize, but they don’t always know what to say or the best ways to help. Doctors and health professionals may sometimes offer minor emotional support, but their primary focus is always medical. 

Support groups developed to join people together who are dealing with similar difficult circumstances. That may be coping with a specific medical condition, such as cancer or dementia, a mental health issue like depression, anxiety, bereavement, or addiction, for example, or caring for a family member or friend facing such a problem. Whatever issues you or a loved one are facing, though, the best medicine can often be the voice of people who have walked in your shoes. 

A support group offers a safe place where you can get information that’s practical, constructive, and helpful. You’ll have the benefit of encouragement, and you’ll learn more about coping with your problems through shared experiences. Hearing from others facing similar challenges can also make you feel less alone in your troubles.” 

Hmmm, maybe we should look at the different kinds of zoom support groups now. By the way, I like the easily understood way Study.com delineated these: 

“Member-only/Self-help/Peer Support Groups 

Some support groups do not have a professionally trained leader. These are called member-only, self-help, or peer support groups. … there is usually no professionally trained leader. These support groups are beneficial because members can tell their own stories, listen to other people’s stories, and support and provide advice or strategies for one another. Sometimes members of these groups may feel more free to honestly share their thoughts than people in groups with a professionally trained facilitator, although this is not always the case. 

Professionally Facilitated Support Groups 

Professionally facilitated support groups are usually well-organized and have a leader who is professionally trained to help members deal with the group’s core issues…. while the facilitator might or might not have personally experienced the issue at the core of the support group, they would be professionally trained and experienced in supporting people who are dealing with these issues. These support groups are beneficial because members can share their own experiences, listen to other people’s experiences, provide support to one another, and receive professional advice and opinions about how to handle their particular issues. Members may also receive strategies to cope or improve from other group members. Some groups have leaders who have experienced the problem the group supports and who are professionally licensed to provide therapy to others. 

Members of a support group work together to help one another and to receive support. 

Online Support Groups 

Online support groups may have a professionally trained leader, a leader who has experienced the issue, or no clear leader. These groups, like other support groups, can have any number of purposes…. The benefits could be the same as in-person support groups, such as providing an outlet to express feelings, the chance to help others, the opportunity to get advice and coping techniques, and an increase in positive feelings. A unique benefit of online support groups is that people who live anywhere can join as can people who have physical disabilities that limit their mobility. 

Depending on the criteria involved in joining the online support group, one challenge could be making sure that members genuinely had the problem the support group was centered around. Online support groups that are not run effectively might be unmonitored, which could increase the chance of problems, rather than benefits, for members. However, overall, online support groups are effective tools for support.” 

I think we should spend a little time on where to find these support groups. Of special interest to us would be those for chronic kidney disease, dialysis, and/or transplant. A good place to start is the National Kidney Foundation. Their support group is asynchronous, meaning not all the members are online at the same time. You leave a comment or question, and other members answer when they can. 

The AAKP, or American Association of Kidney Patients, offers a list of online support groups by state. At last count, there were 11 different groups. Some of them were further specialized as to transplant, men only, and end stage renal disease. Some even offered telephone entry to the group for those without computers. 

RSNHope, the Renal Support Network, offers their own online support group. Many of the hospitals where you’ve been treated may also offer online support groups. Or you can ask your nephrologist if they can help you find one. Remember, if it’s online, it doesn’t have to be local. 

What do you say we all give Joanne a big thank you for suggesting today’s topic. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

Surprise!

Last week, I mentioned that this week’s blog would be about chronic kidney disease cookbooks and food preparation blogs. That’s what I’d planned at the time. But then a guest blog appeared in my mailbox. 

Lori Hartwell, the author, is one of the first people I met when I decided I wanted to become a CKD awareness advocate. She was kind enough to publish several of my articles. Recently, we met again since we were both working on the same zoom project. We talked about swapping guest blogs… and then life got in the way, as it usually does. Being a person of her word, she didn’t forget. I’ll turn this blog over to Lori now. 

***** 

Kidney Disease Diagnosis: Help is Out There 

By Lori Hartwell 

I’ve lived with kidney disease since the age of 2, back when the medical world was first learning how to treat the disease. I was not expected to live. Dialysis was in its infancy stages back in 1968, and so was I. The medical community became my world. I earned my education as a patient, while spending so much of my time in hospitals and in being the first to try a new treatment. It was a lonely start in life as I missed many childhood experiences. I spent all my teenager years on dialysis.   

Years later, after beating all odds, I started the Renal Support Network (RSN). I did it because I didn’t want others with kidney disease to feel as lonely as I once did.  I wanted to let them know if they become knowledgeable about their illness, proactive in their care they will realize there is lots of hope! 

In 1993 I started RSN as a support network for others, like myself, who live with chronic kidney disease. Peer support is important to learn how to deal with all the emotions and to navigate this illness – “One friend can make the difference.” We have expanded our programs to help people have hope and to be proactive in their care.   

As RSN’s President and Founder, it is my goal to give people living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) tools to take control of the course and management of this life-threatening illness. It’s hard to believe through our patient engagement programs we have grown to reach millions of people.  

It is important to be aware of the epidemic of kidney disease. The Center for Disease Control states that more than 15% of the adult population in the United States live with chronic kidney disease (CKD). It’s possible to have kidney disease and not know. Don’t be afraid to get tested. Kidney function can be maintained, and the progression of the disease can be slowed down if caught in the early stages. Don’t be afraid to get tested; it is a simple blood test. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.     

It is also believed that people with CKD tend to have higher levels of anxiety and depression than others. They often feel isolated because of their outward appearances which make them different than their peers. They also have different priorities in life. When others are thinking about “the big game” or which nail salon offers the best manicure, people with CKD are struggling to understand the disease and learn how to live a full life despite the fact that they have CKD.   

Help is out there! Having even one friend can really make a difference. Connect with the Renal Support Network where you’ll find a variety of national, online patient support group activities to curb the loneliness that so often affects those with CKD. Chances are you’ll find more than one friend if you make that connection. And always be careful about depression. It can sneak up on you! Read the book, “Chronically Happy – Joyful Living in Spite of Chronic Illness,” and be inspired. It is my personal story of deciding to take simple, logical steps to live a full life and realize one’s dreams.  

Perhaps you are having difficulty understanding kidney disease. Knowledge is power! Listen in to the Essentials of Chronic Kidney Disease podcast to hear Dr. Stephen Fadem, a nephrologist in Houston, Texas, speak as he sheds light on CKD. He talks about the steps you can take in collaboration with your physician to either delay the progression of your disease or, in many instances, prevent it. Many people are not even aware that they have CKD, so be sure to be tested during your annual physical. Worried about your diet? The CKD Diet – What to Know Based on New Science by Dr. Kam Kalantar will be helpful.   

Learning can be fun, and you’ll see how when you check out the animated video, “Share Your Spare.” You’ll be introduced to Neff and Nuff, the two “kidney pals” who talk about what it means to donate the “gift of life.” If you share the video with your friends and family, it may encourage them to register to become organ donors. Watch the entire animated series on our website.  

Or maybe you are one of the many people living with CKD who need help with your diet. If so, this podcast, the “What’s for Dinner” blues, is for you! There’s been talk about low-protein diets, but keep in mind that your body still needs a certain amount of protein. Adding more plant-based sources of protein may help. It’s important to talk to a renal dietitian to know what is right for you.  

I have seen the evolution of this illness for 5O plus years of living kidney disease.  Although living with CKD can be difficult, the illness is manageable, especially when you have the opportunity to learn from other people’s experiences and wisdom, so make connections!  

Visit https://www.rsnhope.org/ today, join us and hang onto hope!  

**** 

Yet again, many thanks to Lori for all she offers to those of us who suffer from CKD, just as she does. As you can see, CKD awareness advocates like to work with each other. 

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Say It Out Loud

I have a cousin I’m very friendly with who loves being a member of Toastmasters International. She’s been involved with them for years and years. Her opinion of them is that they help you express your message and that it’s fun. That, of course, got me to thinking. I wondered if Toastmasters could be useful in advocating for a transplant, especially your own transplant.  

Talk about serendipity! It was just about at this point in time that Leesa Thompson and I got to communicating. She’d had a transplant fairly recently and had been thinking along the same lines I was. One thing led to another, and I asked her if she would guest blog about her experience. She, in turn, approached Josiah Wolfson who explains why he joined the Virtual Kidney Stories Toastmasters Club. I find this exciting. What if all those that wanted transplants could advocate for themselves effectively? Let’s see what Josiah and Leesa, who worked together on this blog, have to say. 

(Josiah is the Vice-President in charge of Public Relations for the club. Leesa is the President.) 

JOIN THE VIRTUAL KIDNEY STORIES TOASTMASTERS CLUB AND IMPROVE YOUR ADVOCACY  

“Your ability to advocate for yourself may determine whether you live or die.” 

As a patient living with kidney disease, it may feel like you’re on your own. From one day to the next, you go from living your normal life to being diagnosed with an unfamiliar disease that rocks your world. It’s normal for things to get harder before they get easier and that can be overwhelming. Unfortunately, you can’t expect the system to work for you. You’re better off hoping for the best while expecting the worst. Taking the initiative by (a) getting clear on your treatment options and (b) advocating for yourself is the best way to improve your circumstances.  

There’s no guarantee that anyone will provide you with a comprehensive overview of your treatment options. So, you have to educate yourself. Spoiler alert, dialysis and kidney transplantation are the only two treatment options for kidney disease. It is undisputed that kidney transplantation is the better option for those patients healthy enough for the operation, but that requires a kidney donation.  

Advocating for yourself will take different forms at different times. It spans from fighting to be added to the UNOS Kidney Transplant Waitlist, to asking someone to consider becoming your lifesaving kidney donor. Putting yourself out there like this may scare you and will likely push you outside your comfort zone. These fears and insecurities stop more than half of kidney patients from asking someone to be a living kidney donor. Your ability to advocate for yourself may determine whether you live or die. 

Leesa Thompson, a recent kidney recipient, partnered with Toastmasters to create the Kidney Stories Toastmasters Club, a dedicated Toastmasters club focused on the kidney community. Leesa had experienced the empowering benefits of Toastmasters in a general community club that helped her find her voice to advocate for herself.  

Leesa went from battling chronic kidney disease for more than four decades to getting a lifesaving kidney transplant. By developing her advocate skills, she found a non-directed kidney donor within eight months of being informed that she would need to begin dialysis if she didn’t get a kidney transplant. Through social media, yard signs, newspaper articles, a magazine spread, an alumni spotlight, flyers, and calling cards, Leesa’s online story received over 32,500 views in only six weeks. Her efforts resulted in a stranger becoming her swap donor. Leesa has been a member of Toastmasters for sixteen months. She credits her improved public speaking, leadership skills, and heightened motivation to help others to Toastmasters.  

Leesa asked me to join the Kidney Stories Toastmasters Club and shared with me her vision of using the time-tested Toastmasters program to help the kidney community. The club mission is to provide a supportive and positive learning experience in which members of the kidney community are empowered to develop communication and leadership skills, resulting in greater self-confidence and personal growth in order to better advocate for themselves and others.  

Toastmasters International is a longstanding nonprofit organization that helps people find their voice in a safe space. Through its educational program and regular small group peer driven meetings, Toastmasters brings benefits such as: 

• Improved communication, public speaking, leadership, and soft skills; 
• Sharpened presentational skills; 
• More confident members who can think better on their feet; and 
• Increased team collaboration and networking. 

Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.com

I’m Josiah Wolfson and I joined the Kidney Stories Club because I want to help create a safe space for those in the kidney community to share their stories while also improving my own leadership and advocacy skills. On January 13, 2022, I donated a kidney to a stranger. I saw it as a simple cost benefit analysis that provided low risk of surgical or long-term complications and a couple weeks of recovery in exchange for saving a life. Sharing my transplant story publicly proved more challenging than the transplant itself. I created Kidney Abundance (@kidneyabundance) to promote living kidney donation because we could collectively solve the kidney shortage crisis if more people would donate a kidney. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity use my voice to advocate for such an important cause. Since joining the Kidney Stories Club, I have already had the opportunity to share my transplant story, receive constructive feedback about my speech, and network with others from the kidney community. The support and accountability I have received from the Kidney Stories Toastmasters Club has encouraged me to continue spreading my story.   

Join the Kidney Stories Toastmasters Club and see that you are not alone in your battle against kidney disease. Our next virtual meeting is on March 20, 2022, at 7:00-8:30pm (EST) and will be held every first and third Sunday of the month. Take this important step in developing skills to craft and deliver a persuasive speech that may just save your life. Email kidneystoriestoastmasters@gmail.com for the zoom link and membership information. 

Gail here. Consider this… and then send your email. If I needed a transplant, I certainly would. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

A New Pregnancy and a New Diagnose

I have two grandsons. One is three and a half. The other is 21 months. How do I explain to them what my life is like if I go on dialysis? Or require a transplant? Sure, I’m a writer… but not for children. That’s a special kind of author. That’s why I asked Jessica Webb, a Christian children’s book writer, if she wouldn’t mind explaining how she came to write a kidney disease book for children. She was kind enough to guest blog to clue us in on her particular journey. Here’s what she wrote:   

I was always aware that I was different from other kids my age for as long as I can remember. But it wasn’t until I was pregnant that I found out something wasn’t right. A 24 hour urine test came back with a very high protein count. That was the beginning of a new chapter in my life. 

I was referred to one of the top nephrologists in Louisville, Kentucky when I was about four months pregnant. To my dismay, my pregnancy was now considered high risk. I was informed I had some sort of kidney disease, but a biopsy could not be performed until after I had the baby.   

We continued routine OB/GYN appointments, nephrology appointments, and high-risk OB/GYN appointments.  Around 35 weeks, my creatinine was close to 2.5. My doctor panicked and said the baby had to be born before there was more kidney damage. That started 48 hours of hell.  

I was pumped full of magnesium because I’d had a few bouts of high blood pressure. The medical staff assumed I had preeclampsia. Magnesium sulfate was protocol for preeclampsia. I felt paralyzed and everything was blurry. I started having very, very low blood pressure, was throwing up, and came close to passing out.  

The morning after my son’s birth, I awoke feeling sick. I still was nearly blind and could not move a muscle. I told my husband something was amiss, and they have to stop giving me this magnesium ASAP. 

My husband and I don’t like conflict. We try to trust doctors and nurses. We never had a reason not to. But I told my husband if something doesn’t happen, I’m going to die. “Get me the nurse now!” I yelled.  

For the first time in my life, I was aggressive towards the nurse because she wasn’t listening to me. I told her to stop the magnesium right away. She did. A few hours later, a nephrologist arrived who said, “Thank God, you told them to stop the magnesium because it was eight on the 1-10 magnesium scale. Nine is when most people go into cardiac arrest.”  

The nurses had also given me Advil and Motrin for pain and that made my creatinine skyrocket. I learned during that hospital stay how differently we have to treat our bodies as people with kidney disease. Our bodies do not react the same way as non-kidney patients’ bodies do.   

Once I was discharged from the hospital and then my son was a month later, I started my journey of finding out what my kidney disease was caused by. We did a biopsy. The nephrologist told me there had been no doubt in his mind I had FSGS. Then began the extensive researching, reading, and asking questions about this disease. I learned that even with a transplant, FSGS can come back in the new transplanted kidney. I was devastated. 

What really helped me get through those months was that I started to illustrate and write children’s books. I wrote two Christian based books over those months and sold a lot to friends and family.  

I knew what my third children’s book had to be. I wanted to write a book about kidney disease, dialysis, and transplant. I wanted it to be light-hearted and funny, so young children could understand the seriousness of the situation. If they had a family member on dialysis, I wanted to explain to them why this person didn’t always feel healthy enough to participate. Or, if they were the ones on dialysis or had to have a transplant, to give them ways to cope. I also wanted to show preventive ways to take care of your kidneys and give more information on the subject in general.  

When I looked around to see if there was anything like that when my son was little, I couldn’t find anything. He learned the hard way. But I would have given anything to have a book to help his little mind understand the gravity of the situation. My book, The Book About Kidneys: And No, Not the Beans, has been a hit with the dialysis community. I’m so glad to be offering this resource to the little ones in our lives.   

Three things I wish I’d known before this all happened: 

One – I wish someone had told me to take a breath and get a second or even third opinion.  

Two – YOU are the only true advocate for yourself and your health. Doctors only know what they’ve seen before or what they’ve studied. But this is a very complex disease, and all of our bodies are different. Don’t let anyone brush off a symptom they say is unrelated.  

Three – If you aren’t the one on dialysis but your loved one is, be patient with them. This disease is a nasty one. One day they may not feel too bad and the next may be their worst day. Love them and be kind. Don’t just ask them how you can help. Take it upon yourself to do so.  

I hope to release more books on the subject of kidney disease and major illness. You can find my books on Amazon. Thanks! Jess 

While the book does have a bit of a Christian bent, I found it well worthwhile for children. It’s fun and informative without being overwhelming to “little minds.” I’m a bit relieved that there is a book to explain to my grandsons should that be necessary. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

It Gets a Little Confusing

I’m familiar with hospice, as I’m sure quite a few of us are.  Way back in 1988, they came to my folks’ house for my father when he had pancreatic cancer. When my mother could no longer physically take care of him, he was moved to a hospice facility. Although I lived in New York and they lived in Florida, I spent quite a bit of time in hospice with my father. I was terrified and wholly unaware of what this was or what they were doing for us. Thank goodness they were there to help us. 

The Hospice Foundation of America tells us what hospice is: 

“Medical care to help someone with a terminal illness live as well as possible for as long as possible, increasing quality of life. 

An interdisciplinary team of professionals who address physical, psychosocial, and spiritual distress focused on both the dying person and their entire family. 

Care that addresses symptom management, coordination of care, communication and decision making, clarification of goals of care, and quality of life.” 

When I had pancreatic cancer two years ago, it wasn’t hospice that I heard discussed, but palliative care. One problem, I didn’t know what it was. Get Palliative Care explains: 

“Palliative care is specialized medical care for people living with a serious illness. This type of care is focused on providing relief from the symptoms and stress of the illness. The goal is to improve quality of life for both the patient and the family. 

Palliative care is provided by a specially-trained team of doctors, nurses and other specialists who work together with a patient’s other doctors to provide an extra layer of support. Palliative care is based on the needs of the patient, not on the patient’s prognosis. It is appropriate at any age and at any stage in a serious illness, and it can be provided along with curative treatment.” 

Let’s take a look at these two different concepts. What’s the difference between them? Hospice is for those “with a terminal illness,” while palliative care is for those “with a serious illness.” Well, isn’t a serious illness terminal? 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

No, it isn’t. Some of you knew that already, but some of you didn’t. Terminal means end, like a train terminal… or the end of life. According to Johns Hopkins Medicine – in the medical sense – serious means: 

“Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Patient is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.” 

Serious is not necessarily critical. Remember that the next time you call a hospital to ask about the condition of a friend or family member. 

I knew palliative care grew from the hospice movement, but I didn’t know how or why. I turned to UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) Palliative and Supportive Institute for the answer: 

“…. Palliate comes from pallium, the Latin word for ‘cloak’. [The English teacher in me just had to include that information.] To palliate is to cloak, or cover up, the symptoms of an illness without curing it. This meaning grew into the idea of alleviating or reducing suffering.  

Palliative care got its start as hospice care, often delivered by caregivers at religious institutions. Dame Cicely Saunders, a British physician, founded the first formal hospice in 1948 specifically to care for patients with terminal illnesses. Her success in improving her patients’ quality of life led her to introduce the concept of hospice care to other physicians, who quickly recognized the value in respecting people’s wishes and needs at the end of life. Caregivers began to understand that these values could apply to patients without terminal illnesses as well.

A New Way of Caregiving

In 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) recognized palliative care as a distinct specialty dedicated to relieving suffering and improving quality of life for patients with life-limiting illnesses or serious injuries. WHO described the goals of palliative care as the prevention, assessment, and multidisciplinary treatment of physical, spiritual, and psychological problems. Palliative care was now an established entity, separate from hospice and sometimes administered along with curative treatments, but hospitals were rather slow to adopt the practice.  

The Growth of Palliative Care 

Palliative care eventually began to catch hold in hospitals across the United States. Between 2000 and 2011, the prevalence of palliative care in U.S. hospitals with 50 or more beds has increased more than 157% (according to the Center to Advance Palliative Care). Today, palliative care programs ensure whole-person healthcare for patients in approximately 75% of all hospitals with more than 300 beds. As more people begin to understand and appreciate the benefits that palliative care offers, the specialty has become available in nursing homes, ambulatory care centers, and home care programs.” 

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Inpatient palliative care is widely accepted in the U.S. now, but what if you want palliative care at home? What can be done for you without entering the hospital?  

“Medical evaluations, including monitoring for common symptoms like nausea, vomiting, pain, and anxiety 

Prescribing medications to ease these symptoms 

Additional medical applications like treating wounds and other medical needs 

Physical therapy and other rehabilitation needs 

Providing emotional and spiritual support in addition to physical 

Providing social interaction 

Providing guidance on navigating the healthcare system and understanding individual healthcare needs” 

Thank you to Crosswords Hospice and Palliative Care for the above information. 

This is starting to sound a lot like home health care. I wondered if the two were the same. The Alliance had a wonderfully simple clarification and even included hospice: 

• “Home health services help you get better from an illness or injury, regain your independence, and become as self-sufficient as possible. 
• Palliative care is a form of home health care in which patients face chronic or quality of life-limiting illnesses, and focuses on the relief of symptoms, pain and stress. Patients may receive curative treatments. 
• Hospice is for patients with a limited life expectancy, who are no longer receiving curative treatments for any terminal illness.” 

By the way, The Alliance is a pretty interesting group. This is how they describe themselves: 

“Employers are the second-largest purchaser of health care in the country, yet typically have little say in its price – which has gone up every year since 1996 – or its quality. However, by self-funding and banding together to leverage their purchasing power, employers can generate more control over their costs and demand better care for their dollar together.  

The Alliance serves as the voice of those self-funded employers who are tired of health care as usual; we’ve been creating clarity in health care for over 30 years by providing transparent, creative approaches to network and benefit plan design to unlock savings where others can’t – or won’t – using Smarter NetworksSM and sophisticated data mining and analysis.” 

What does any of this have to do with kidney disease? Palliative care is for kidney disease, too. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

National Kidney Month

The world has acknowledged World Kidney Day. We have had walks in many countries. We have had educational seminars in many countries. We have posted in many countries. All to bring awareness to what our kidneys do for us and the worldwide challenge of kidney disease. Thursday, March 11^th, was World Kidney Day. 

But today is Monday. And you know what? It’s still March, National Kidney Month, here in the United States. Each year, I write about National Kidney Month, just as I write about World Kidney Day. Interesting tidbit: the Philippines also has a National Kidney Month which they celebrate in June. I’ll only be writing about the U.S.’s National Kidney Day. 

 As usual, let’s start at the beginning. What is National Kidney Month? Personalized Cause has a succinct explanation for us. While I’m not endorsing them since I usually try to avoid endorsements, I do want to let you know they sell the green ribbons and wristbands for kidney disease awareness that you’ll probably be seeing hither and yon all month. 

“National Kidney Month, observed in March and sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, is a time to increase awareness of kidney disease, promote the need for a cure, and spur advocacy on behalf of those suffering with the emotional, financial and physical burden of kidney disease. The National Kidney Foundation is the leading organization in the U.S. dedicated to the awareness, prevention and treatment of kidney disease for hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals, millions of patients and their families, and tens of millions of Americans at risk. 

National Kidney Month is a time to increase awareness about the function of the kidneys and kidney disease. Kidneys filter 200 liters of blood a day, help regulate blood pressure and direct red blood cell production. But they are also prone to disease. One in three Americans is at risk for kidney disease due to diabetes, high blood pressure or a family history of kidney failure. There are more than 26 million Americans who already have kidney disease, and most do not know it because there are often no symptoms until the disease has progressed.” 

That, of course, prompted me to go directly to the National Kidney Foundation’s information about National Kidney Month. This is what I found: 

“March 1, 2021, New York, NY — In honor of National Kidney Month which starts today, the National Kidney Foundation’s (NKF) national public awareness campaign, “Are You the 33%?” enters a new phase focusing on the connection between type 2 diabetes (T2D) and kidney disease, also known as chronic kidney disease (CKD). NKF urges everyone to find out if they’re the 1 in 3 at risk for developing kidney disease by taking a one-minute quiz at MinuteForYourKidneys.org. 

Diabetes is a leading risk factor for developing kidney disease. Over time, having high blood sugar from diabetes can cause damage inside your kidneys. But it doesn’t have to end up this way; because with careful control of glucose (sugar) levels, there is evidence that you can prevent kidney disease in people with diabetes. 

Award-winning actress, Debbie Allen joined the campaign as the T2D Campaign Celebrity Spokesperson in February, Black History Month, to help promote awareness of diabetes as a leading cause for developing chronic kidney disease. Allen has a family history of diabetes and was recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.” 

Indeed, the National Kidney Foundation has a lot to offer with peer mentoring, community, an information helpline, and transplant, palliative care, dialysis, kidney donation, and research information. 

The American Kidney Fund [AFK] joins in National Kidney Month with their form to pledge to fight kidney disease. I signed up; you can, too, if you’d like to. I’m not comfortable with the word “fight,” but I’m not going to let that stop me from spreading awareness of the disease.  

If you’re inclined to donate to the cause, the American Kidney Fund is doubling your donation this month. They also offer an advocacy program, as well as free screenings, activity days, financial assistance, and kidney education in addition to transplant and kidney donation information, 

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases [NIDDK], part of the National Institutes of Health [NIH], celebrates National Kidney Month with the following post and offerings. 

“Follow these healthy lifestyle tips to take charge of your kidney health. 

1. Meet regularly with your health care team. Staying connected with your doctor, whether in-person or using telehealth via phone or computer, can help you maintain your kidney health. 

2. Manage blood pressure and monitor blood glucose levels. Work with your health care team to develop a plan to meet your blood pressure goals and check your blood glucose level regularly if you have diabetes. 

3. Take medicine as prescribed and avoid NSAIDs like ibuprofen and naproxen. Your pharmacist and doctor need to know about all the medicines you take. 

4. Aim for a healthy weight. Create a healthy meal plan and consider working with your doctor to develop a weight-loss plan that works for you. 

5. Reduce stress and make physical activity part of your routine. Consider healthy stress-reducing activities and get at least 30 minutes or more of physical activity each day. 

6. Make time for sleep. Aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night. 

7. Quit smoking. If you smoke, take steps to quit. 

It may seem difficult, but small changes can go a long way to keeping your kidneys and you healthier for longer. 

Learn more about managing kidney disease 

• Managing Chronic Kidney Disease 
• Eating Right for Chronic Kidney Disease 
• Nutrition for Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease in Adults 
• High Blood Pressure & Kidney Disease 
• Chronic Kidney Disease Tests & Diagnosis 
• Keeping Kidneys Safe – Know How Medicines Affect the Kidneys External link 
• Kidney Disease in Children” 

As for me, I’ll continue to blog my brains out [just as I declared in last week’s blog] until more and more people are aware of the kidneys and kidney disease. Same goes for the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts, and the SlowItDownCKD book series. It’s all about kidney disease. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

World Kidney Day, 2021

Will you look at that? The world keeps moving on, pandemic or not. And so, I recognize that Thursday of this week is World Kidney Day. In honor of this occasion, I’ve chosen to update whatever I’ve written about World Kidney Day before … now sit back and enjoy the read. 

…World Kidney Day? What’s that? I discovered this is a fairly new designation. It was only fifteen years ago that it was initiated. 

 According to http://worldkidneyday.org, 

“World Kidney Day is a global awareness campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of our kidneys.” 

Sound familiar? That’s where I’m heading with What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease; SlowItDownCKD 2011; SlowItDownCKD 2012; 

SlowItDownCKD 2013; SlowItDownCKD 2014; SlowItDownCKD 2015;

 SlowItDownCKD 2016; SlowItDownCKD 2017; 

SlowItDownCKD 2018; SlowItDownCKD 2019, the soon to be published SlowItDownCKD 2020; Facebook; Instagram; LinkedIn; Pinterest; Twitter; and this blog. We may be running along different tracks, but we’re headed in the same direction. 

According to their website,  

“The International Society of Nephrology (ISN) is a global professional association dedicated to advancing kidney health worldwide since 1960 through education, grants, research, and advocacy.  

We do this for all our stakeholders by:  

BRIDGING THE GAPS of available care through advocacy and collaborations with our global partners  

BUILDING CAPACITY in healthcare professionals via granting programs, education and research  

CONNNECTING OUR COMMUNITY to develop a stronger understanding of the management of kidney disease.  

The ISN, through its members and in collaboration with national and regional societies, engages 30,000 health professionals from across the globe to reduce the burden of kidney diseases and provide optimal health care for patients.”  

If you go to Initiatives on the ISN’s website, you’ll find the following: 

“World Kidney Day (WKD) is a joint initiative between the International Society of Nephrology (ISN) and the International Federation of Kidney Foundations (IFKF). 

World Kidney Day is a global campaign that aims to raise awareness of the importance of our kidneys to overall health and to reduce the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems. 

World Kidney Day is an annual event that takes place worldwide. Hundreds of organizations and individuals launch initiatives and events on WKD to help raise awareness of kidney disease.” 

Now we just need to know what the International Federation of Kidney Foundations (IFKF) has to say about themselves: 

“Vision 

Better kidney health for all. 

Optimal care for people affected with Kidney Disease or Kidney Failure. 

Mission 

Leading a worldwide movement to 

Promote better kidney health with primary, secondary and tertiary preventive measures. 

Promote optimal treatment and care so as to maximize the health, quality of life, and longevity for people with or at high risk for developing Kidney Disease or Kidney Failure.” 

As of July of last year, the name has been changed to the International Federation of Kidney Foundations – World Kidney Alliance (IFKF-WKA) 

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

Back to World Kidney Day’s website now, if you please. 

“The World Kidney Day Steering Committee has declared 2021 the year of ‘Living Well with Kidney Disease’. This has been done in order to both increase education and awareness about effective symptom management and patient empowerment, with the ultimate goal of encouraging life participation. Whilst effective measures to prevent kidney disease and its progression are important, patients with kidney disease – including those who depend on dialysis and transplantation – and their care-partners should also feel supported, especially during pandemics and other challenging periods, by the concerted efforts of kidney care communities.” 

Their site offers materials and ideas for events as well as a map of global events. Prepare to be awed at how wide spread World Kidney Day events are. 

Before you leave their page, take a detour to Kidney FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on the toolbar at the top of the page.  You can learn everything you need to know from what the kidneys do to what the symptoms (or lack thereof) of CKD are, from how to treat CKD to a toolbox full of helpful education about your kidneys to preventative measures. 

Just as this year’s, the previous World Kidney Day themes were all educational and much needed by the CKD community. 

“2020 Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere – from Prevention to Detection and Equitable Access to Care 

2019 Kidney Health for Everyone, Everywhere 

2018 Kidneys & Women’s Health. Include, Value, Empower 

2017 Kidney Disease & Obesity – Healthy Lifestyle for Healthy Kidneys 

2016 Kidney Disease & Children – Act Early to Prevent It! 

2015 Kidney Health for All 

2014 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and aging 

2013 Kidneys for Life – Stop Kidney Attack! 

2012 Donate – Kidneys for Life – Receive 

2011 Protect your kidneys: Save your heart 

2010 Protect your kidneys: Control diabetes 

2009 Protect your kidneys: Keep your pressure down 

2008 Your amazing kidneys! 

2007 CKD: Common, harmful and treatable 

2006 Are your kidneys OK?” 

If only my nurse practitioner had been aware of National Kidney Month [That’s the topic of next week’s blog] or World Kidney Day, she could have warned me immediately that I needed to make lifestyle changes so the decline of my kidney function could have been slowed down earlier. How much more of my kidney function would I still have if I’d known earlier? That was thirteen years ago. This shouldn’t still be happening… but it is. 

Photo by Gabby K on Pexels.com

I received a phone call a few years ago that just about broke my heart.  Someone very dear to me sobbed, “He’s dying.” When I calmed her down, she explained a parent was sent to a nephrologist who told him he has end stage renal disease and needed dialysis or transplantation immediately. 

I pried a little trying to get her to admit he’d been diagnosed before end stage, but she simply didn’t know what I was talking about. There had been no diagnose of Chronic Kidney Disease up to this point. There was diabetes, apparently out of control diabetes, but no one impressed upon this man that diabetes is the foremost cause of CKD. 

What a waste of the precious time he could have had to do more than stop smoking, which he did [to his credit], the moment he was told it would help with the diabetes.  Would he be where he was then if his medical practitioners had been aware of National Kidney Month or World Kidney Day, especially since this man was high risk due to his age and diabetes?  I fervently believe so. 

I have a close friend who was involved in the local senior center where she lives.  She said she didn’t know anyone else but me who had this disease.  Since 1 out of every 7 people does nationally (That’s 15% of the adult population) and being over 65 places you in a high risk group, I wonder how many of her friends were included in the 90% of those in the early stage of CKD who don’t know they have CKD or don’t even know they need to be tested.  I’d have rather been mistaken here, but I’m afraid I wasn’t. National Kidney Month or World Kidney Day could have helped them become aware. Thank you to the CDC for these figures. Please note the figures are as of 2019. 

For those of you who have forgotten [Easily understood explanations of what results of the different items on your tests mean are in What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease.], all it takes is a blood test and a urine test to detect CKD.  I have routine blood tests every three months to monitor a medication I’m taking.  It was in this test, a test I took anyway, that my family physician uncovered Chronic Kidney Disease as a problem. 

There is so much free education about CKD online. Maybe you can start with the blogroll on the right side of the blog or hit ‘Apps’ on the Topics Dropdown .Responsum is a good place to start. None of us needs to hear another sorrowful, “If only I had known!” 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

Learning Every Day

 Chronic Kidney Disease is all over my world. You know when you have your ears open for a certain term, you seem to hear it all the time? That’s what my life has been like for the last dozen years. When I noticed a comment in a Facebook kidney disease support group about Action myoclonus–renal failure (AMRF) syndrome, I was stunned. Here was yet another possible kidney disease I’d never heard of. 

As defined by MedlinePlus, a division of the National Health Institutes (which is a division of the U.S. National Library of Medicine) at http://bit.ly/2KY6EI8,  

“Action myoclonus–renal failure (AMRF) syndrome causes episodes of involuntary muscle jerking or twitching (myoclonus) and, often, kidney (renal) disease. Although the condition name refers to kidney disease, not everyone with the condition has problems with kidney function.” 

I was intrigued and wanted to know more. So, I did what I usually do when that happens. I poked around everywhere I could think of on the internet. My first hit was on The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), which is part of The U.S. National Library of Medicine at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK333437/. 

“Action myoclonus – renal failure (AMRF) syndrome typically comprises a continuum of two major (and ultimately fatal) manifestations: progressive myoclonic epilepsy (PME) and renal failure; however, in some instances, the kidneys are not involved. Neurologic manifestations can appear before, simultaneously, or after the renal manifestations. Disease manifestations are usually evident in the late teens or early twenties. In the rare instances in which renal manifestations precede neurologic findings, onset is usually in late childhood / early adolescence but can range to the fifth or sixth decade.” 

Uh-oh, epilepsy. One of my children has that. Luckily for her, she doesn’t have CKD. But we still need more information… or, at least, I do. For instance, how does the illness progress? 

Rare Disease InfoHub at http://bit.ly/37Qgo0h answered this particular question. 

“The movement problems associated with AMRF syndrome typically begin with involuntary rhythmic shaking (tremor) in the fingers and hands that occurs at rest and is most noticeable when trying to make small movements, such as writing. Over time, tremors can affect other parts of the body, such as the head, torso, legs, and tongue. Eventually, the tremors worsen to become myoclonic jerks, which can be triggered by voluntary movements or the intention to move (action myoclonus). These myoclonic jerks typically occur in the torso; upper and lower limbs; and face, particularly the muscles around the mouth and the eyelids. Anxiety, excitement, stress, or extreme tiredness (fatigue) can worsen the myoclonus. Some affected individuals develop seizures, a loss of sensation and weakness in the limbs (peripheral neuropathy), or hearing loss caused by abnormalities in the inner ear (sensorineural hearing loss). Severe seizures or myoclonus can be life-threatening.” 

But we haven’t looked at the kidneys yet. How are they involved in those who develop kidney problems from this rare disease? Let’s go back to MedlinePlus to see what we can find. Don’t be surprised that the answer is fairly general: 

“When kidney problems occur, an early sign is excess protein in the urine (proteinuria). Kidney function worsens over time, until the kidneys are no longer able to filter fluids and waste products from the body effectively (end-stage renal disease).” 

Do you remember what proteinuria is? Here’s a reminder from my first CKD book – What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease – in case you’ve forgotten: 

“Protein in the urine, not a normal state of being” 

Hmmm, proteinuria is exactly what it sounds like. That got me to thinking: How does the protein get into the urine in the first place? 

“Protein gets into the urine if the kidneys aren’t working properly. Normally, glomeruli, which are tiny loops of capillaries (blood vessels) in the kidneys, filter waste products and excess water from the blood. 

Glomeruli pass these substances, but not larger proteins and blood cells, into the urine. If smaller proteins sneak through the glomeruli, tubules (long, thin, hollow tubes in the kidneys) recapture those proteins and keep them in the body. 

However, if the glomeruli or tubules are damaged, if there is a problem with the reabsorption process of the proteins, or if there is an excessive protein load, the proteins will flow into the urine.” 

Thank you to a trusted site, The Cleveland Clinic at http://cle.clinic/3nTjLZI for helping us out here.

The important point here is that proteinuria, or albumin as it is often called, prevents the substances that belong in your blood stream from fully remaining there to help you: 

“Blood contains two main kinds of proteins: albumin and globulins. Blood proteins help your body produce substances it needs to function. These substances include hormones, enzymes and antibodies. 

Usually, the amount of total protein in your blood is relatively stable.” 

I’d gone back to the reliable Cleveland Clinic for this information. 

I don’t know about you as you read today’s blog, but I found writing it exhausting. Of course, that may be due to the fact that Christmas Eve and Christmas Day have just passed. I’m not quite as vigilant as I usually am about the renal diet during certain celebrations. Considering that Bear’s Lutheran and I’m Jewish, that was a lot of celebrating. I see my exhaustion as an endorsement to get right back on the kidney diet. 

Here’s hoping your Chanukah, Christmas, Boxing Day, and Kwanza were as happy as you’d hoped under the restrictions of small group gatherings, six foot distancing, and mask wearing. We stayed home alone using the phone and Facetime to be with family.  

It was… different. But more importantly, it was safe. Keep in mind that you’re already immuno-compromised simply by having CKD. If you no longer have a spleen like me (Thanks, pancreatic cancer.), you’re even more immunocompromised. Hugs are the best, but they could be deadly for us. Stay safe. 

Until next week, 

Keep living your life! 

A Different Kind of App

Periodically for the last decade, I’ve written about apps that could help us manage our Chronic Kidney Disease. They would be those with electrolyte counters, portion counters, GFR calculators, and even calorie counters or exercise counters. They were helpful. Some still exist; some have gone by the wayside.

In recent years, I’ve been vocal about the necessity for CKD patients to understand what our disease is, how it came to be, and what we might do about it. This is different from wanting people to be aware of CKD. My contention is that the educated patient is the one most able to help him or herself.

Responsum for CKD does just that, but I’ll let them explain their app themselves. This is from their April 28^th blog at https://responsumhealth.com/great-news-for-the-ckd-community/.

“I have great news to share with Responsum Health’s extended family of supporters and everyone around the world whose lives are affected by kidney disease. Responsum Health, with support from Otsuka Pharmaceutical, is launching a new platform and app designed specifically for people with kidney disease, including chronic kidney disease (CKD)—a condition that affects 37 million Americans.

Responsum for CKD represents our company’s second disease-specific platform—the first being Responsum for PF—and includes some amazing new features. These include a translation function into seven languages and a dynamic social wall called Community Chat, which automatically suggests articles and resources based upon each comment or entry. Just like with pulmonary fibrosis, Responsum for CKD will be available as a free web-based platform and a mobile app for iOS and Android.

We’ve recruited an all-star Content Advisory Council made up of some of the top specialists in CKD to serve as our content validators. Instead of partnering with a specific patient advocacy group to vet our content, we chose this approach to ensure that the platform is free of commercial bias. We will roll out the names of our esteemed council alongside the app launch.

To the CKD community, Responsum Health is on the way! We can’t wait to serve you, join you, learn from you, and listen to you.

Let’s get started!

Andy Rosenberg
Founder and CEO, Responsum Health”

Perhaps we could use a bit more information. Let’s try their May 5^th press release at https://responsumhealth.com/press-and-media/responsum-health-launches-innovative-kidney-disease-information-platform/.

“Responsum Health Launches Innovative Kidney Disease Information Platform
New technology supports patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare professionals

​[WASHINGTON, D.C., May 28 2020] — Today, Responsum Health (Responsum), an innovative developer of personalized patient apps and chronic disease knowledge communities, with support from Otsuka Pharmaceutical, a global healthcare company, announced the launch of an online connection and knowledge platform for patients with kidney disease, such as chronic kidney disease (CKD), a condition that affects an estimated 37 million Americans. The platform, called Responsum for CKD, can be accessed for free via web browser or mobile app.

Designed to meet the needs of patients, families, caregivers, and healthcare professionals, Responsum for CKD offers a number of informational and community-oriented features. At its core, Responsum replaces unreliable web aggregators and social sites by providing patients and caregivers with a customized Newsfeed that has easy-to-read summaries of important kidney health news items. All of the information found on Responsum’s platforms is written by professional health writers and vetted by a team of researchers under the guidance of an advisory council, which is made up of leading kidney health experts.

Other features include a moderated social wall to serve as a community chat room and the Patient One-Sheet, which allows patients to easily collect, download, print, and share their key medical information. Patients will also have access to a robust collection of trusted patient support links.

“We are grateful that Otsuka is willing to support our mission to educate, support, and empower patients with chronic conditions through our unique approach to providing patients with the information they need to drive better outcomes,” said Andrew Rosenberg, founder of Responsum Health. “By working with recognized leaders from the patient advocacy community, we have created a trusted online platform that fills a vital information gap—while simultaneously creating an authentic, welcoming online community for people with kidney disease.”

About Responsum Health

Responsum Health’s mission is to build and support online knowledge communities for chronic disease patients. The company offers a free, revolutionary patient engagement platform that monitors, searches, and curates the Internet to generate a personalized news feed of article summaries, which are vetted by Responsum’s patient group partners. Responsum wraps the news feed into a comprehensive platform that enables patients to comment on and rate the articles, as well as share them with their professional care team and loved ones. Responsum also enables patients to better organize their health information, find local patient support groups and services, and support one another through a moderated, disease-specific social wall.”

The one thing that has been missing from other CKD apps is the education. I write to help people become aware of CKD and maybe understand a little bit of what affects you as a CKD patient. Responsum has articles in real time, so to speak. What I mean by that is if you’re interested in potassium and ask a question in the community about it, you also have articles attached that will explain more about your topic: no searching, no delay, just click on the upper right hand corner. How marvelous.

I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve been involved in what we used to call think tanks about what CKD patients need. My answer has always been education… and what could be better than immediate education? The one sheet with your medical information is also a boon, but not specific to only this app.

But the community with instant articles about your topic? Priceless. I would say that it’s free is also priceless, but that’s a little bit obvious. Do I recommend this app? Yes. Do I use this app? Yes… and if asked my opinion, I would say you should use it, too. The key to our kidney health just may be self-education.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Allow Me to Introduce You…

We all know I’m not the only one raising awareness about Chronic Kidney Disease. I’ve posted guest blogs from other writers, those who bring our plight to the attention of the government, manufacturers of products that may help us, and patients and/or donors themselves. But I realize I’m ‘old school.’ There are those who are more comfortable with other forms of social media, such as broadcasting shows. Hopefully, you haven’t seen the two YouTubes I created years ago. For an actor, they are awful. Others are doing a much better job of broadcasting than I can.

One such person is Steve L. Belcher. After I realized I’ve been seeing his name again and again on Facebook, I decided to ask him to guest blog. I certainly learned a lot from his blog and I hope you do, too. This is not a competition among Chronic Kidney Disease awareness advocates, but an informal coalition. We all want you to know as much as you can about this disease we share. Steve’s blog explains the background for all the shows he broadcasts. Kudos, my friend, kudos.

“Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. was founded and created September 2014 as a 501 (c) (3) grassroots nonprofit [Gail here. This has to do with restrictions on lobbying rights.] by Steve L. Belcher, RN, MSN, MS – a former dialysis nurse clinician – as a result of witnessing the lack of resources for kidney patients dialyzing in renal treatment facilities located in urban communities. Many patients undergoing kidney dialysis from urban communities are forced to make hard decisions between purchasing lifesaving medications or food to feed themselves or family members. Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. initially assisted patients with financial needs for medications, transportation to and from treatment, utilities, and communication devices. Due to the enormous cost of assisting patients and lack of donations, Urban Kidney Alliance could no longer operate under this operational concept.

At this juncture Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. decided to refocus its mission towards kidney disease education, collaboration, and advocacy. Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. believes refocusing their mission will have a better impact on reaching communities and individuals at-risk for chronic kidney disease. Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc.’s goal is to reach three million people with their message of kidney disease awareness.

Before the inception of Urban Health Outreach, there was Urban Renal Talk with Tamika & Steve. On October, 2017, Tamika Ganues joined Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. as Vice President of Operations. During our early beginnings, we began broadcasting Urban Renal Talk with Tamika and Steve from our cellphones to our Facebook Page. The Urban Renal Talk with Tamika and Steve broadcast was created to interview kidney patients and professionals making a difference in the chronic kidney disease community. Since the beginning Urban Renal Talk with Tamika and Steve has come a long way with over four hundred broadcast shows to date. Our shows consist of digital broadcasting, which is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communication medium.

As a result of the overwhelming positive response to Urban Renal Talk with Tamika & Steve, we decided to create a second show directed towards the transplant community called Sunday Morning Transplant Coffee. However, this wasn’t always the case. Our viewership began slowly. Many people haven’t heard of our show and the work we were doing to raise kidney disease awareness and education. The majority of our guests in the beginning were patients sharing their struggles and triumphs with kidney disease. As we began to be consistent with our shows, we were able to schedule and confirm professional guests on the show. Sunday Morning Transplant Coffee Talk was broadcast every Sunday from 11:00 am – 12:00 pm EDT and interviewed guests who were either transplant recipients, transplant donors, or had received a transplant which was later rejected.

January 2019 was the launch and creation of the Urban Health Outreach Media Network on Facebook, a subsidiary of Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. Urban Health Outreach Media was created to be an online kidney disease education and awareness media broadcasting company to reach more people at-risk and affected by kidney disease globally. Currently, Urban Health Outreach Media broadcasts five shows during the week. The shows are:

The Lisa Baxter Show Sunday 8:00 PM – 8:30 PM

World Kidney News Sunday 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Smashing Kidney Disease Tuesday 8:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Warriors Quest Wednesday 8:30 PM – 9:30 PM

Urban Renal Talk with Tamika & Steve Thursday 9:00 PM – 10:00 PM

Kidney Stories 2 first and last Friday of each month from 8:00 PM -9:00 PM EST.

Each show has its own unique style and approach to addressing kidney disease. For example, Warriors Quest gives kidney patients seeking a living kidney donor transplant the opportunity to share their story and transplant hospital information in hopes of finding a donor.

We felt there was a need to create these shows to address the many aspects of kidney disease and the comorbidities associated with it such as diabetes and hypertension. Social media has become a focal point for millions of people to interact and socialize with each other across the country. Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. wanted to draw on this population with the multiple shows. In addition, the multiple kidney disease groups on Facebook give us another way to disseminate our patient education to patients who undergo in center hemodialysis, home hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis, and transplantation. Since the start of Urban Health Outreach Media, the shows have lived up to our expectations, yet we still have a long way to go. We measure the success of our shows by the increase in viewership over time.

The author Steve L. Belcher, RN, MSN, MS, DN-CM [Me again: This means Delegating Nurse/Case Manager.], has been affiliated with the kidney dialysis industry for over thirty-three years. He began his career in 1985 as a Patient Care Technician, and – in 1996 – started his career as a Dialysis Staff Nurse. In addition, Steve has worked at many dialysis clinics throughout the United States as a Dialysis Travel Nurse. Today, Steve L. Belcher, RN is the Executive Director of Urban Kidney Alliance, Inc. and resides in Washington, D.C.”

Steve, I salute you for all you do to bring CKD awareness to the rest of us. Thank you.

Saving Lives

Last week, I promised to write about COVID-19 and Chronic Kidney Disease for today’s blog. This topic has touched me personally since one of my daughters was sent to the hospital when it was suspected she’d contacted the virus. Without the COVID-19 test, we still don’t know if she has the virus. We do know she still has the cough. Luckily, an x-ray proved her lungs were clear, so she was sent home with a Z-pack and orders to take Tylenol. No, she doesn’t have CKD, but her treatment at the hospital left me with a lot of questions for those of us who do.

Once again, I’m rushing headlong into the topic. Let’s slow down and start at the beginning. Why is it called COVID-19 anyway? According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/faq.html,

“On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization announced an official name for the disease that is causing the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, first identified in Wuhan China. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as ‘2019 novel coronavirus’ or ‘2019-nCoV.’”

There are many types of human coronaviruses including some that commonly cause mild upper-respiratory tract illnesses. COVID-19 is a new disease, caused be [sic] a novel (or new) coronavirus that has not previously been seen in humans. The name of this disease was selected following the World Health Organization (WHO) best practice for naming of new human infectious diseases.”

I don’t know about you, but I want to know about corona viruses. How did they get that name? So I went to Dictionary.com at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/coronavirus where I hoped to find that information. This is what was there.

“any of various RNA-containing spherical viruses of the family Coronaviridae, including several that cause acute respiratory illnesses.”

To be honest, all I understood was that it “causes acute respiratory illnesses.” Like my daughter’s coughing. But why would she be given a Z-pack for that? Healthcare-Online at www.healthcare-online.org/What-Is-A-Z-Pack.html confirmed my belief that antibiotics are for bacterial infections, not viral ones. Curiouser and curiouser.

Drugs.com at https://www.drugs.com/medical-answers/antibiotics-kill-coronavirus-3534867/ had the answer.

“The World Health Organization (WHO) is very clear that antibiotics do not work against viruses, only bacteria, and yet health care providers are using antibiotics in some patients with COVID-19. This is because:

• Patients with viral pneumonia can develop a secondary bacterial infection that may need to be treated with an antibiotic, although, this complication is reported to be uncommon early on in the course of COVID-19 pneumonia.
• Also known as Azithromycin, a Z-pack is a medication used for treating serious and severe infections caused by bacteria. It contains macrolide antibiotic, which helps in stopping all forms of growth caused bantibiotic, although, this complication is reported to be uncommon early on in the course of COVID-19 pneumonia.If treatment is required for a secondary bacterial infection then a range of antibiotics can be used such as penicillins (ampicillin plus sulbactam [Unasyn], piperacillin plus tazobactam [Zosyn]), macrolides (azithromycin), cephalosporins (ceftriaxone [Rocephin]), aminoglycosides (tobramycin) and glycopeptides (vancomycin [Vancocin HCL]) for example. Often a combination of two different antibiotics is used.
• Azithromycin is also thought to have antiviral and anti-inflammatory activity and may work synergistically with other antiviral treatments. In in vitro laboratory studies azithromycin has demonstrated antiviral activity against Zika virus and against rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold.”

Time to deal with CKD when you have COVID-19. I wanted to understand how CKD could make you more vulnerable to this disease. I turned to Prevention at https://www.prevention.com/health/a31245792/coronavirus-high-risk-groups/ for more information.

“People with underlying health conditions are at a higher-than-normal risk of developing severe forms of COVID-19…. When your body is already dealing with a separate health condition, it has less energy to put toward fighting an acute infection…. The CDC says these conditions include:

• Blood disorders, such as sickle cell disease or taking blood thinners
• Chronic kidney disease, as defined by your doctor
• Chronic liver disease, as defined by your doctor
• Compromised immune system, including undergoing cancer treatment such as chemotherapy or radiation, having received an organ or bone marrow transplant, or taking     high doses of corticosteroids or other immunosuppressant medications, and HIV or AIDS
• Current or recent pregnancy in the last two weeks
• Endocrine disorders, such as diabetes
• Metabolic disorders
• Heart disease
• Lung disease, including asthma
• Neurological and neurologic and neurodevelopment conditions”

This is definitely not a case of misery loves company. Not only do I have CKD, but I am undergoing chemotherapy. Oh, and I have diabetes. To all others in the high risk group, I’m so sorry we all belong to this particular community right now.

Hmmm, do we need to do something more than everyone else needs to do to avoid COVID-19? After spending more time than usual surfing the web, I admit I was surprised that there were no extra precautions other than those for everyone else. What are those you ask? Back to the CDC for their infograph at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/downloads/COVID19-What-You-Can-Do-High-Risk.pdf which makes it easy for us to understand. It also defines who is higher risk. Unfortunately, it could not be reproduced, so you’ll have to go to the website directly.

I always seem to feel better when I understand what might be a threat to me or anyone in one of my communities. The purpose of today’s blog was to help you understand so that you may also feel better. Make no mistake: This is serious. I only go out to Chemotherapy every other week. Even young, not high risk people from my dancing community are being safe. They are not going out either (unless they are essential workers). Do yourself a favor and save your life by staying in.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

National Kidney Month is Almost Over

Welcome to the next to last day of National Kidney Month, 2020. Of course, that doesn’t mean you should stop taking care of your kidneys or spreading Chronic Kidney Disease awareness once National Kidney Month is over, but I don’t have to tell you that, do I? What I’d like to tell you about instead is the ins and outs of National Kidney Month.

In my latest book (Cancer has definitely slowed the arrival of SlowItDownCKD 2019, but soon, my friends, soon.) SlowItDownCKD 2018, I wrote:

“As usual, let’s start at the beginning. What is National Kidney Month? Personalized Cause at https://www.personalizedcause.com/health-awareness-cause-calendar/national-kidney-month has a succinct explanation for us. By the way, while I’m not endorsing them since the site is new to me, I should let you know they sell the green ribbons for National Kidney Month that you’ll probably be seeing hither and yon all month. [Added today: Come to think of it, some readers have asked me where to get CKD ribbons. This is what this site sells among other things.]

‘National Kidney Month, observed in March and sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, is a time to increase awareness of kidney disease, promote the need for a cure, and spur advocacy on behalf of those suffeing [sic] with the emotional, financial and physical burden of kidney disease. The National Kidney Foundation is the leading organization in the U.S. dedicated to the awareness, prevention and treatment of kidney disease for hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals, millions of patients and their families, and tens of millions of Americans at risk.’

That, of course, prompted me to go directly to the National Kidney Foundation’s information about National Kidney Month at https://www.kidney.org/news/monthly/Focus_KidneyMonth.

‘Focus on the Kidneys During National Kidney Month in March

March is National Kidney Month and the NKF is urging all Americans to give their kidneys a second thought and a well-deserved checkup. Kidneys filter 200 liters of blood a day, help regulate blood pressure and direct red blood cell production. But they are also prone to disease; 1 in 3 Americans is at risk for kidney disease due to diabetes, high blood pressure [Added today: This year’s theme for National Kidney Month is high blood pressure and your kidneys.] or a family history of kidney failure. There are more than 30 million Americans [Added today: 31 million this year] who already have kidney disease, and most don’t know it because there are often no symptoms until the disease has progressed….’

I wanted to share this quote from the American Kidney Fund with you, both as a CKD awareness advocate and a woman:

‘Kidney disease is a silent killer that disproportionately affects women who are often the primary caregivers for loved ones with the disease, are more likely to become living donors but less likely to receive a transplant, and are at higher risk for CKD,’ said LaVarne A. Burton, president and chief executive officer of AKF. ‘Because women with kidney disease may also face other health issues, including infertility, pregnancy complications, bone disease and depression, AKF is using Kidney Month to let women know we are here to support them and to provide resources that will answer their questions and concerns.’

The Renal Support Network at https://www.rsnhope.org/ is working even more emphatically to spread kidney disease awareness this month, too:

‘March is National Kidney Month. This is a special time set aside to raise awareness about kidney health and activities. RSN invites members of the kidney community, our friends and our families to join in the conversation.’

This on top of their usual. For those that are not familiar with this group, the following statement is from their website.

‘Since 1993 RSN has created and continues to produce a vast collection of information about kidney disease. Feel free to share our National Kidney Month page, a favorite story, KidneyTalk™ show or awareness image on social media using the hashtag #KidneyMonth and be sure to tag us @RSNhope.’

DaVita Kidney Care at https://www.davita.com/education/resources offers many resources (as the website’s URL assures us) to help understand both CKD and dialysis. Some of their offerings are:

• ‘Organizations and Programs
• Education
• Advice & Inspiration
• Recipes & Nutrition
• Specific Kidney Diseases
• Resources 
• Health Related Portals’

If you click through on the link offered above, each item will open on a new page.”

This year (2019), I noticed that The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/community-health-outreach/national-kidney-month offers us even more information during National Kidney Month:

“March is National Kidney Month, a time when communities across the country raise awareness about kidney disease. In partnership with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), this year’s focus is the link between high blood pressure and kidney disease.

If you have high blood pressure, you’re at risk for chronic kidney disease, a serious condition that can lead to stroke, heart attack, kidney failure, and death.

The good news is that you can help protect your kidneys by managing high blood pressure with these 6 healthy lifestyle habits.

1. Take medications as prescribed.  Your doctor may prescribe blood pressure-lowering medications that are effective in slowing the development of kidney disease.
2. Aim for a healthy weight. If you are overweight or obese, losing even a small amount of weight can improve blood pressure readings.
3. Select healthier food and beverage options.  Focus on fruits and vegetables, lean meat, whole grains, and other heart-healthy foods.
4. Try to quit smoking. If you smoke, take steps to quit.
5. Get enough sleep. Aim for 7 to 8 hours of sleep per night.
6. Manage stress and make physical activity part of your routine. Consider healthy stress-reducing activities and get at least 30 minutes or more of physical activity each day.

Learn more about high blood pressure and kidney disease

• High Blood Pressure & Kidney Disease
• Preventing Chronic Kidney Disease
• Causes of Chronic Kidney Disease
• High Blood Pressure
• High Blood Pressure Health Education Initiative
• Take Control of Your Blood Pressure”

As for me, I’ll blog my brains out until more and more people are aware of kidney disease. Same goes for the Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts. It’s all about kidney disease awareness.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Dax’s Journey to Dialysis Friendly Clothing

I met Dax Francis a few years ago in a Facebook CKD & Dialysis Support page. Slowly, I became aware that he produces dialysis clothing… and that fascinated me. Then it dawned on me that you should know such clothing exists, although Dax is not the only one who produces them. I asked him if he would write a guest blog explaining how this all started and where he got the idea. He promptly agreed and that will be today’s blog, the first blog in March, National Kidney Month.

Before we read Dx’s blog, some of us may need a reminder of what FSGS is. According to The Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fsgs/symptoms-causes/syc-20354693:

“Focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is a disease in which scar tissue develops on the parts of the kidneys that filter waste from the blood (glomeruli). FSGS can be caused by a variety of conditions.

FSGS is a serious condition that can lead to kidney failure, for which the only treatment options are dialysis or kidney transplant. Treatment options for FSGS depend on the type you have.”

I think we’re ready for Dax’s guest blog now.

My name is Dax Francis. I was diagnosed with FSGS as a young man, age twelve, and it was as if overnight school, sports, and friends were replaced with doctors, hospitals, and treatments. I struggled to find my place in this new body that could no longer do the things that had defined my life. Shortly after I graduated from high school, I had to begin dialysis which set me down a dark path of loneliness, depression, and sadness.

When I began dialysis I wanted everything to end. This was not the life I had ever wanted, and I believed that all my abilities, my skills, and talents were hidden behind a treatment filled with pain. The strength it took to live in that struggle was too much, and I put myself in situations where everything could have and should have ended. I was lost, and then I got that call saying it was my turn for a kidney transplant.

This was it! This is my moment to start my life! And then FSGS recurred shortly after surgery, and I was never able to leave treatment.

Devastation, utter devastation. I could not let my donor down though and felt a need to try to pursue my life once more despite the struggle. I enrolled in school for Social Work. I wanted to use my experiences to help those who may be in similar situations as myself, and I found my calling. Being able to help others and learn from those with wholly different lives and experiences than mine was the greatest gift I could have ever been given.

As I had all but finished the Social Work program, I realized that I could not be the social worker that people deserved due to my health. Being on treatment three times a week made it difficult to find work, and I rarely felt well enough to continually work. I struggled with this, feeling like I was never going to have a way to be a part of the world and the community nor was a place for me or anyone like me. This fact made me feel worthless and I dropped out of college 6 credits shy of my degree, because I thought it was pointless.

I wandered, confused, and didn’t know how to be someone who could make a difference. The wisdom I had gained from fighting every day to survive, I felt, was something special and I just wanted someone to ask me what I had learned while living in the struggle that is chronic illness. I just wanted someone to take notice of my fight and my struggle and see the person who can make a difference because of it all.

After the passing of a close friend I needed to live for both of us and put myself out there where I met someone who changed my life. I met someone who saw my fight and helped me realize that all I had been through made me capable of so much. She believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself, this enabled me to live a life that I had always dreamed of, and I was doing it all despite being on dialysis. I was able to meet the love of my life despite the struggle. It all started with putting my true self out there and not being afraid of being that true person sharing with light and love.

I enrolled back in school and finished my 6 credits finally achieving my degree. During this time the world began to change. More and more negativity seemed to be seeping into my life and I found myself in a negative space despite having everything I wanted. I needed to make a change. At the end of 2017 I committed to being positive, uplifting and to helping others the way I can. I started making videos while I was actually on dialysis just to let others know that they were not alone and that they needed to continue their fight.

The support I received from those first videos inspired me to do more with my talents and abilities and Ivye Wear was born on the morning of January 13, 2018. I wanted to provide comfort, warmth, and hope to the warriors fighting every day to survive, often with little recognition of the strength it takes to survive and live in that struggle. I wanted to provide a suit of armor for the warrior when they go into battle; whether it’s dialysis, chemotherapy, infusions, or something else entirely, and I designed comfortable, accessible clothing designed for a range of medical treatments, procedures, and devices. Sweats, Hoodies, and T-Shirts designed for warriors, by warriors. All of our clothes provide zipper access to the vital areas your caregivers need to perform treatment while you can stay warm and dignified.

I never want anyone to feel as if they don’t have a place in this world due to their illness or struggle, Ivye Wear was born to be a beacon of hope for all chronic illness patients. I believe that it is our experiences that give us the strength, wisdom, and patience to change the world.

Thank you, Dax, for your honesty and especially for the dialysis clothing.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Close Your Eyes…

One of the first things the oncology nurse cautioned me about was closing my eyes in the shower – except when I was washing my face. How odd, I thought. I’d been closing my eyes in the shower the entire 12 years I’d had Chronic Kidney Disease. It was just so restful.

Being who I am and doing what I do, I asked her why I needed them open. She explained kindly, but as if I were lacking in intelligence. Remember, she and I had just met. She told me that closing your eyes can impede keeping your balance and at 72 (then), the last thing I wanted was to fall and possibly break a hip.

I had been putting myself at such risk for years without knowing it. Have you?

Let’s see if we can figure out the logic, even the science behind this. According to Wikipedia at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sense_of_balance:

“The sense of balance or equilibrioception is one of the physiological senses related to balance. It helps prevent humans and animals from falling over when standing or moving. Balance is the result of a number of body systems working together: the eyes (visual system), ears (vestibular system) and the body’s sense of where it is in space (proprioception) ideally need to be intact. The vestibular system, the region of the inner ear where three semicircular canals converge, works with the visual system to keep objects in focus when the head is moving. This is called the vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR)…. The balance system works with the visual and skeletal systems (the muscles and joints and their sensors) to maintain orientation or balance. Visual signals sent to the brain about the body’s position in relation to its surroundings are processed by the brain and compared to information from the vestibular and skeletal systems.”

While Wikipedia is a fine place to start researching when you have no idea how to research a certain subject, you need to keep in mind that anyone can edit any entry at any time… whether or not they have the credentials or knowledge to do so.

That’s a lot of information all at once. Let’s slow this down and go bit by bit. The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital at https://www.eyeandear.org.au/page/Patients/Patient_information/Balance_Disorders/How_does_the_balance_system_work/ informs us that,

“The vestibular system (inner ear balance mechanism) works with the visual system (eyes and the muscles and parts of the brain that work together to let us ‘see’) to stop objects blurring when the head moves. It also helps us maintain awareness of positioning when, for example, walking, running or riding in a vehicle. In addition, sensors in the skin, joints and muscles provide information to the brain on movement, the position of parts of the body in relation to each other, and the position of the body in relation to the environment. Using this feedback, the brain sends messages to instruct muscles to move and make the adjustments to body position that will maintain balance and coordination.”

I just counted five different parts to our ever present balancing act. Yet, I’d thought it only had to do with the inner ear and wondered why I needed to keep my eyes open in order to keep my balance. Oh my, and each of the five different parts to our ever present balancing act have several parts of their own.

Let’s take a close look at the visual system. I found this information on the blog page of the Shores of Lake Phalen (a senior living community) at https://www.theshoresoflakephalen.com/how-does-vision-affect-balance/:

“The Anatomy of the Eye

First, let’s address the anatomy of the eye. The human eye contains little nerve endings with light-sensitive cells called rods and cones. The rods and cones send signals to the brain through the optic nerve, helping the brain interpret what we see. Those images help us determine how close we are to certain objects – for example, a set of stairs. If your visual system were malfunctioning, you wouldn’t be able to tell how far you needed to raise your foot to reach the next step.”

Okay, fair enough. While this is not particularly a medical site, I like the plain English of the explanation. Now I understand why, when I open my eyes after having closed them to wash the shampoo out of my hair (Yay! I finally have hair again.), I’m not always in the position I’d thought I was.

And the vestibular system? I turned to Vestibular.org at https://vestibular.org/understanding-vestibular-disorder/human-balance-system for help with this one.

“Sensory information about motion, equilibrium, and spatial orientation is provided by the vestibular apparatus, which in each ear includes the utricle, saccule, and three semicircular canals. The utricle and saccule detect gravity (information in a vertical orientation) and linear movement. The semicircular canals, which detect rotational movement, are located at right angles to each other and are filled with a fluid called endolymph. When the head rotates in the direction sensed by a particular canal, the endolymphatic fluid within it lags behind because of inertia, and exerts pressure against the canal’s sensory receptor. The receptor then sends impulses to the brain about movement from the specific canal that is stimulated. When the vestibular organs on both sides of the head are functioning properly, they send symmetrical impulses to the brain. (Impulses originating from the right side are consistent with impulses originating from the left side.)”

But this is the one we grew up thinking was responsible for balance. As a child, I had no idea that vision was involved. Did you? Hmmm, the joints are involved, too, as is the brain. We haven’t even touched proprioception and won’t be able to for lack of room, but do click through to the word in this sentence for more information about that. It will take you back to the Wikipedia entry.

Keep those eyes open in the shower as much as possible. That may be easier now that you understand how it will help your balance.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Auld Lang Syne Already?

It’s the last few days of 2019 and this year has whizzed by. My dance with pancreatic cancer has been a trip I could have done without, but the birth of my grandson more than made up for it. Now I get to see him all the time and I only have one more regiment of chemotherapy to go.

Oh, there I go again assuming everyone knows what Auld Lange Syne is. According to Classic FM at https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/auld-lang-syne-lyrics-and-origins/:

“What does ‘Auld Lang Syne’ mean?

The most accurate plain English interpretation of the Auld Lang Syne’s famous title is ‘Old long since’, or ‘For the sake of old times’.

The song itself is reflective in nature, and is basically about two friends catching up over a drink or two, their friendship having been long and occasionally distant.

The words were written by Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1788, but Burns himself revealed at the time of composing it that he had collected the words after listening to the verse of an old man on his travels, claiming that his version of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ marked the first time it had been formally written down.

However, an earlier ballad by James Watson, named ‘Old Long Syne’, dates as far back as 1711, and use of the title phrase can be found in poems from as early as the 17th century, specifically works by Robert Ayton and Allan Ramsay.”

The song is usually sung at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve and is closely associated with the ending of one year and the beginning of the next. That’s tomorrow night.

Before we leave 2019, let’s take a look at what’s been happening in the kidney world this year.

The ball got rolling, so to speak, with this announcement:

“The Advancing American Kidney Health initiative, announced on July 10, 2019 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), places the kidney community in the national spotlight for the first time in decades and outlines a national strategy for kidney diseases for the first time …. In order to achieve the Advancing American Kidney Health initiative’s lofty goals and make good on the KHI’s commitment to people with kidney diseases, drug and device innovation needs to accelerate.”

You can read the entire announcement from the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology at https://cjasn.asnjournals.org/content/early/2019/12/05/CJN.11060919.

The American Kidney Fund at https://www.kidneyfund.org/advocacy-blog/future-of-dialysis-innovation.html announced prizes for innovations in dialysis. We are now in phase two.

“HHS and ASN collaborated with patients, nephrologists, researchers and others in planning the competition. Several agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, are involved in this effort. AKF has provided comments to the KidneyX project, urging a focus on unmet needs and improving patient quality of life.

The KidneyX: Redesign Dialysis competition will have two phases. During phase one (late-October 2018-February 2019), innovators will be asked to come up with ideas to ‘replicate normal kidney functions and improve patient quality of life.’ During phase two (April 2019-January 2020), innovators will be asked to develop prototypes to test their ideas.

The HHS press release detailing the competition can be found here.”

You can also read my blog about KidneyX by using the topic dropdown on the right side of the blog.

S.1676/H.R 3912 was passed this year, too. According to Renal Support Network at https://www.rsnhope.org/kidney-disease-advocacy/the-chronic-kidney-disease-improvement-in-research-and-treatment-act-of-2019-s-1676/, this is what the act provides:

“Specifically, the legislation does the following:

• Medigap available to all ESRD Medicare beneficiaries, regardless of age.
• Improve care coordination for people on dialysis by requiring hospitals to provide an individual’s health and treatment information to their renal dialysis facility upon their discharge. The individual or dialysis facility may initiate the request.
• Increase awareness, expand preventative services, and improve coordination of the Medicare Kidney Disease Education program by allowing dialysis facilities to provide kidney disease education service. And it will allow physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and clinical nurse specialists, in addition to physicians, to refer patients to the program. And additionally, provide access to these services to Medicare beneficiaries with Stage 5 (CKD) not yet on dialysis.
• Incentivize innovation for cutting-edge new drugs, biologicals, devices, and other technologies by maintaining an economically stable dialysis infrastructure. The Secretary would be required to establish a process for identifying and determining appropriate payment amounts for incorporating new devices and technologies into the bundle.
• Improve the accuracy and transparency of ESRD Quality Programs so patients can make better decisions about their care providers.
• Improve patient understanding of palliative care usage as well as access to palliative care services in underserved areas.
• Allow individuals with kidney failure to retain access to private insurance plans as their primary payor for 42 months, allowing people to keep their private plans longer.”

I scooted over to EurekAlert! at https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-04/uoo-bkd041219.php when I realized they were announcing a drug I’d blogged about:

“’A drug like canagliflozin that improves both cardiovascular and renal outcomes has been eagerly sought by both patients with Type 2 diabetes and clinicians caring for them,’ added Kenneth Mahaffey, MD, professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and co-principal investigator of the trial. ‘Now, patients with diabetes have a promising option to guard against one of the most severe risks of their condition.’

The researchers found the drug canagliflozin, a sodium glucose transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, was less effective at lowering blood sugar in people with reduced kidney function but still led to less kidney failure, heart failure and cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, strokes and death from cardiovascular disease.

Professor Perkovic said the results were impressive. ‘The substantial benefit on kidney failure despite limited effects on blood glucose suggest that these drugs work in a number of different ways beyond their effects on blood sugar. This is an area of intense ongoing research.’”

These are just a few of the innovations in kidney disease in 2019. I hope to see many more for us – like the FDA approval of the artificial kidney – in 2020.

Until next year,

Keep living your life!

Get the Lead Out

In case you haven’t heard yet, my youngest and her husband are having a little boy at the end of the month. I’ve noticed that, as millennials, their generation shares what they already have instead of running out to buy new as my generation – the baby boomers – did. One thing that was shared with them was a 16 year old crib in ace condition.

I thought it was painted white and got nervous about lead in the paint until I did a little digging. Luckily, the anti-lead paint laws came into existence 41 years ago in 1978.

Then I started to wonder what sustained lead exposure could do to someone with Chronic Kidney Disease and turned to one of my favorite sites to find out. According to the National Kidney Foundation at https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/lead-exposure-and-kidney-function,

“Having too much lead in your body can affect all the organs in your body, including the kidneys. When it affects your kidneys, medical experts call it ‘lead-related nephrotoxicity.’  (‘Nephro’ refers to your kidneys, and ‘toxicity’ refers to poison.’) Kidney damage from lead exposure is very uncommon in the United States.  In fact, most experts believe that kidney damage from lead is rare nowadays, especially in the United States and Europe.

It’s believed that lead exposure causes less than 1% of all cases of kidney failure.  It is usually related to jobs where workers are exposed to very high levels of lead, such as stained glass artists, metal smelters, and people who work in battery factories or remodel old homes. The low levels of lead found in drinking water, house paint, dirt, dust, or toys rarely causes kidney damage.

But if it does happen, it is usually only after many years of lead exposure (5 to 30 years).  Also, it is more likely to affect people who are already at risk for kidney disease, or those who already have kidney disease. In children, however, even mild exposure over many years can lead to health effects later in life, including kidney damage.”

Let’s say (Heaven forbid!) that you were among the “less than 1% of all cases of kidney failure” caused by lead exposure. How would you even know you had lead poisoning? The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) at  https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/lead/health.html had an answer ready for us.

“Lead poisoning can happen if a person is exposed to very high levels of lead over a short period of time. When this happens, a person may feel:

• Abdominal pain
• Constipated
• Tired
• Headachy
• Irritable
• Loss of appetite
• Memory loss
• Pain or tingling in the hands and/or feet
• Weak

Because these symptoms may occur slowly or may be caused by other things, lead poisoning can be easily overlooked. Exposure to high levels of lead may cause anemia, weakness, and kidney and brain damage. Very high lead exposure can cause death.

Lead can cross the placental barrier, which means pregnant women who are exposed to lead also expose their unborn child. Lead can damage a developing baby’s nervous system. Even low-level lead exposures in developing babies have been found to affect behavior and intelligence. Lead exposure can cause miscarriage, stillbirths, and infertility (in both men and women).

Generally, lead affects children more than it does adults. Children tend to show signs of severe lead toxicity at lower levels than adults. Lead poisoning has occurred in children whose parent(s) accidentally brought home lead dust on their clothing. Neurological effects and mental retardation have also occurred in children whose parent(s) may have job-related lead exposure.…”

Did you catch the mention of kidney disease? Now what? How is lead poisoning treated? Let’s see what another favorite site of mine, The Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/lead-poisoning/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20354723   has to say:

“The first step in treating lead poisoning is to remove the source of the contamination. If you can’t remove lead from your environment, you might be able to reduce the likelihood that it will cause problems. For instance, sometimes it’s better to seal in rather than remove old lead paint. Your local health department can recommend ways to identify and reduce lead in your home and community. For children and adults with relatively low lead levels, simply avoiding exposure to lead might be enough to reduce blood lead levels.

Treating higher levels For more-severe cases, your doctor might recommend:

• Chelation therapy. In this treatment, a medication given by mouth binds with the lead so that it’s excreted in urine. Chelation therapy might be recommended for children with a blood level of 45 mcg/dL or greater and adults with high blood levels of lead or symptoms of lead poisoning.
• EDTA chelation therapy. Doctors treat adults with lead levels greater than 45 mcg/dL of blood and children who can’t tolerate the drug used in conventional chelation therapy most commonly with a chemical called calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA). EDTA is given by injection.”

Is that safe for your kidneys? Uh-oh, according to WebMD at https://www.webmd.com/balance/guide/what-is-chelation-therapy, it may not be.

“When chelation therapy is used the right way and for the right reason, it can be safe. The most common side effect is burning in the area where you get the IV. You might also experience fever, headache, and nausea or vomiting. Chelating drugs can bind to and remove some metals your body needs, like calcium, copper, and zinc. This can lead to a deficiency in these important substances. Some people who’ve had chelation therapy also have low calcium levels in the blood and kidney damage.”

It looks like this is another case when you’ll have to present the information to your nephrologist and see what he or she advises in your particular case. If it’s a primary care doctor who is treating you for lead poisoning, be certain to tell him or her that you CKD.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

It’s Like the Sahara in There

I like my dentist, especially when he tells me something I didn’t know. When I went to see him last time, I told him my chemo experience and how dry my mouth was. I thought they might be related. He patiently gave me the same information as the Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dry-mouth/symptoms-causes/syc-20356048.

“Dry mouth, or xerostomia (zeer-o-STOE-me-uh), refers to a condition in which the salivary glands in your mouth don’t make enough saliva to keep your mouth wet. Dry mouth is often due to the side effect of certain medications or aging issues or as a result of radiation therapy for cancer. Less often, dry mouth may be caused by a condition that directly affects the salivary glands.

Saliva helps prevent tooth decay by neutralizing acids produced by bacteria, limiting bacterial growth and washing away food particles. Saliva also enhances your ability to taste and makes it easier to chew and swallow. In addition, enzymes in saliva aid in digestion.

Decreased saliva and dry mouth can range from being merely a nuisance to something that has a major impact on your general health and the health of your teeth and gums, as well as your appetite and enjoyment of food.

Treatment for dry mouth depends on the cause.”

The joke’s on me. I developed dry mouth before the radiation treatments began. At least my salivary glands weren’t having any issues of their own. It seems we discussed xerostomia at the right time.

Wait a minute. Something is pulling on my memory. Something about Chronic Kidney Disease and dry mouth. Of course, periodontics and CKD. The Journal Of Clinical Periodontology at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?AllField=chronic+kidney+disease&SeriesKey=1600051x had just what I was trying to remember. By the way, this is a fascinating free online library by John Wiley, a publisher I remember well from when I worked as an educator.

“Periodontitis had significant direct effect, and indirect effect through diabetes, on the incidence of CKD. Awareness about systemic morbidities from periodontitis should be emphasized.”

In other words, if you have CKD or diabetes, make certain your dentist knows so he or she can monitor you for the beginning of periodontic problems. Just as with any other medical issue, the sooner you start treatment, the better. I can attest to this since I caught my pancreatic cancer early, which gave me a much better chance of eradicating it from my body.

The treatment for dry mouth seems simple enough, as explained by Healthline (Thank you again for the two awards!) at https://www.healthline.com/symptom/dry-mouth.

“Dry mouth is usually a temporary and treatable condition. In most cases, you can prevent and relieve symptoms of dry mouth by doing one or more of the following:

• sipping water often
• sucking on ice cubes
• avoiding alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco
• limiting your salt and sugar intake
• using a humidifier in your bedroom when you sleep
• taking over-the-counter saliva substitutes
• chewing sugarless gum or sucking on sugarless hard candy
• over- the-counter toothpastes, rinses, and mints

If your dry mouth is caused by an underlying health condition, you may require additional treatment. Ask your doctor for more information about your specific condition, treatment options, and long-term outlook.”

The sugarless gum works well for me and, as an added benefit, quelled the nausea from the radiation treatments, too. While I don’t drink or smoke, I will have an occasional half cup of coffee when I can tolerate it. I didn’t know this was something to be avoided. As both a CKD patient and a type 2 diabetic (Thanks, pancreatic cancer.), I was already avoiding salt and sugar. So, without realizing it, I was already helping myself deal with dry mouth. Lucky me.

That got me to thinking. What other problems could dry mouth cause? I went to NHS Inform at https://www.nhsinform.scot/illnesses-and-conditions/mouth/dry-mouth to look for an answer. Indeed, this is a Scottish website, but a mouth is a mouth no matter where it’s located, right?

• “a burning sensation or soreness in your mouth
• dry lips
• bad breath (halitosis)
• a decreased or altered sense of taste
• recurrent mouth infections, such as oral thrush
• tooth decay and gum disease
• difficulty speaking, eating or swallowing”

On a personal note, I found the halitosis embarrassing and the altered sense of taste frustrating. And here, I’d been blaming the chemo for that. Maybe it was the chemo, although my age could also be the cause of my dry mouth. I do admit that 72 could be considered “aging.” My husband orders the groceries and we now have a pantry full of food I used to love but all taste, well, funny now. Poor guy, he was just trying to get me to eat when he ordered the food. He knew calorie intake is important when you’re dealing with cancer.

I wondered what the symptoms of dry mouth were… well, other than a dry mouth, that is.

“Common symptoms include:

• A sticky, dry feeling in the mouth
• Frequent thirst
• Sores in the mouth; sores or split skin at the corners of the mouth; cracked lips
• A dry feeling in the throat
• A burning or tingling sensation in the mouth and especially on the tongue
• A dry, red, raw tongue
• Problems speaking or trouble tasting, chewing, and swallowing
• Hoarseness, dry nasal passages, sore throat
• Bad breath”

Thank you to WebMD at https://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dental-health-dry-mouth#1 for the above information.

Will you look at that! Just as diabetes can cause CKD and CKD can cause diabetes, bad breath (halitosis), soreness or burning sensation in the mouth can both be symptoms of dry mouth and problems caused by dry mouth.

Let’s see now. What else can I tell you about dry mouth? DentistryIQ at https://www.dentistryiq.com/clinical/oral-cancer/article/16356305/facts-about-dry-mouth is a new site for me. They describe themselves as “… a leading source of information that helps dental professionals achieve excellence in their positions, whether that position is dentist, dental practice owner, dental hygienist, dental office manager, dental assistant, or dental school student.” I went there to find out just how many people suffer from dry mouth.

“It is estimated to affect millions of people in the United States, particularly women and the elderly…. Current research indicates that approximately one in four adults suffer from dry mouth, and this figure increases to 40 percent in populations over the age of 55….”

This was back in 2006, and unfortunately are the most current figures I could find. Please let us know if you can find more current numbers.

Personal note: Tomorrow I will be having surgery to remove the pancreatic cancerous tumor I’ve been dealing with since last February. The blogs will be posted right on time, but comments, emails, etc. probably won’t be answered for a while. I’ve been told this is an arduous surgery with a long, slow recovery period. Keep well until we can communicate again.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

re·​ha·​bil·​i·​ta·​tion

What! As if staying in the hospital for six to thirteen days weren’t enough, it turned out that I would be in a rehabilitation center for an additional six to eight weeks. Again, while this was for pancreatic cancer, many Chronic Kidney Disease patients who have had surgery may require a stay in such places, too. I look for new experiences, but not this kind.

Let’s go to my favorite dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/rehabilitation for the definition of the word.

“: to bring (someone or something) back to a normal, healthy condition after an illness, injury, drug problem, etc.

b: to teach (a criminal in prison) to live a normal and productive life

c: to bring (someone or something) back to a good condition”

I hope it’s clear that it’s the first definition we’re dealing with today.

Forgive me for being dense, but I still didn’t get how that’s going to be done. So I searched for help and MedlinePlus, which is part of the U.S. National Library of Congress which, in turn, is part of the National Health Institutes, at https://medlineplus.gov/rehabilitation.html did just that.

“What happens in a rehabilitation program?

When you get rehabilitation, you often have a team of different health care providers helping you. They will work with you to figure out your needs, goals, and treatment plan. The types of treatments that may be in a treatment plan include

• Assistive devices, which are tools, equipment, and products that help people with disabilities move and function
• Cognitive rehabilitation therapy to help you relearn or improve skills such as thinking, learning, memory, planning, and decision making
• Mental health counseling
• Music or art therapy to help you express your feelings, improve your thinking, and develop social connections
• Nutritional counseling
• Occupational therapy to help you with your daily activities
• Physical therapy to help your strength, mobility, and fitness
• Recreational therapy to improve your emotional well-being through arts and crafts, games, relaxation training, and animal-assisted therapy
• Speech-language therapy to help with speaking, understanding, reading, writing and swallowing
• Treatment for pain
• Vocational rehabilitation to help you build skills for going to school or working at a job

Depending on your needs, you may have rehabilitation in the providers’ offices, a hospital, or an inpatient rehabilitation center. In some cases, a provider may come to your home. If you get care in your home, you will need to have family members or friends who can come and help with your rehabilitation.”

Personally, I won’t need some of these such as cognitive rehabilitation, speech-language therapy, and vocational rehabilitation. Brain and speaking aren’t involved in pancreatic surgery and I’m retired. You may be in the same situation if you have rehabilitation or you may not. It’s a list that’s made unique for each patient. I’ve got to remind you here that I’m not a doctor; this is a lay person giving her opinion.

Hmmm, it seemed pretty clear that each type of surgery requires its own sort of rehabilitation. Now that we know what’s involved, let’s see who would be involved if you required rehabilitation after a surgery. WebMD at https://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/rehab-after-surgery#1 offered a succinct, easy to understand answer.

“Who Works With You

Different experts help with different parts of your rehab. Some people who might be on your team:

Physiatrist. He’s a doctor who specializes in rehab. He tailors a plan to your needs and oversees the program to make sure it’s going well.

Physical therapist. He teaches you exercises to improve your strength and the range you have when you move your arm, leg, or whatever part of your body had the operation.

Occupational therapist. He helps you regain the skills you need for some basic activities in your everyday life. He might teach you how to cook meals, get dressed, shower or take a bath, and use the toilet. He’ll also show you how to use gadgets that can help you care for yourself more easily, such as a dressing stick or elastic shoelaces. Some occupational therapists will visit your home to make sure it’s safe and easy for you to get around.

Dietitian. He’ll help you plan healthy meals. If your doctor has told you to avoid salt, sugar, or certain foods after your surgery, the dietitian can help you find other choices.

Speech therapist. He helps with skills like talking, swallowing, and memory. Speech therapy can be helpful after surgery that affects your brain.

Nurses. They care for you if you’re staying for a few weeks or months in a rehab center. They may also come to your home to help track your recovery and help you with the transition to life back at home.

Psychologist or counselor. It’s natural to feel stressed out or depressed after your surgery. A mental health professional can help you manage your worries and treat any depression.

It can take many months to recover from an operation, but be patient. A lot depends on your overall health and the kind of procedure you had. Work closely with your rehab team and follow their instructions. Your hard work will pay off.”

Looking over the list, I won’t need a speech therapist and neither would you if you have some kind of kidney related surgery. I’m not so sure about a psychologist or counselor, either. I’m sort of thinking that going through chemotherapy and radiation treatments without one, I won’t need one after surgery. Then again, I’ve never had major surgery before and I’ve been told this is major major surgery. However, should I find myself in a position where my medical team and/or I feel I need counseling, I would not hesitate to ask for it… just as I’ve asked for help with the cancer.

Rehabilitation offers so much. I had no idea this was available until my surgeon told me about it. Nor did I know that Medicare will pay for it… sort of. This is from Medicare at https://www.medicare.gov/coverage/inpatient-rehabilitation-care.

 

“You pay this for each benefit period:

• Days 1-60: $1,364 deductible.*
• Days 61-90: $341 coinsurance each day.
• Days 91 and beyond: $682 coinsurance per each “lifetime reserve day” after day 90 for each benefit period (up to 60 days over your lifetime).
• Each day after the lifetime reserve days: all costs.

*You don’t have to pay a deductible for care you get in the inpatient rehabilitation facility if you were already charged a deductible for care you got in a prior hospitalization within the same benefit period. This is because your benefit period starts on day one of your prior hospital stay, and that stay counts towards your deductible.”

Excuse me while I go check my bank account.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

You’re Bringing What?

I have stayed overnight in the hospital three times in my life: once for a concussion, of which I don’t remember anything (No surprise there.), and twice for the birth of each of my daughters, of which I only remember the actual births. I’m facing a six to thirteen day stay towards the end of the month… and I just don’t know what to bring or why. While it’s not a kidney related stay, as Chronic Kidney Disease patients we all know CKD patients may need to stay in the hospital, too, for transplants,  kidney cancer, or other reasons.

I got a call from the surgeon’s office today. They were able to explain what to bring on the day of surgery: nothing. It seems there are no lockers to hold valuables while you’re in surgery. While I took a breath to contemplate life without my phone and/or iPad, it was explained that I would probably be sleeping until the next day, anyway. I didn’t know that. Hmmm, maybe I’ll just bring a book – a real book – for that first day… just in case I wake up. I can bring a paperback so I won’t care if it’s ‘mislaid.’ Or can I?

All right, enough guessing. Let’s do some researching here. This is from MedicineNet at https://www.medicinenet.com/hospital_10_tips_packing_for_a_hospital_stay/views.htm:

1. Documents and paperwork. Ideally, you should bring all the necessary paperwork in one folder, preferably the kind with a tie or snap closure to guarantee that important documents will not be lost. Don’t forget insurance cards, a list of all the medications you are currently taking, and a list of telephone numbers of family and friends. If you have a written power of attorney or living will, always bring those along with you too.
2. A small amount of money for newspapers, vending machines, and such. Bringing credit cards or large amounts of cash is not recommended, since theft can occur in hospitals. It is also a good idea to leave all jewelry at home, it is one less thing to worry about losing or being stolen.
3. Clothing. You may want to bring comfortable pajamas or lounging clothes, if you’ll be able to wear your own clothing. Bring a supply of loose-fitting underwear and comfortable socks …. A cardigan-style sweater or bed jacket can help ward off the chills. Make sure you have slippers to walk around in the hospital and one pair of regular shoes (in case you’re allowed to walk outside, and you’ll need them for the trip home anyway).
4. Eyeglasses, if you require them.
5. Writing paper and pen, for making notes or recording questions you want to ask your doctor
6. A prepaid phone card for calls from your room telephone.
7. Toiletries. You can bring your toothbrush, toothpaste, lotion, deodorant, soap, shampoo, a comb or hair brush, and other toiletries from home, but avoid perfumes and any highly scented products. Lip balm is also a good addition to your toiletries kit.
8. Something to occupy your time – Bring books or magazines to help pass the time….
9. Photos or small personal items. Many people enjoy having a couple of small framed photos or mementos from home to personalize their hospital space.
10. Finally, check the hospital’s policy about electronic items before you pack your laptop, portable DVD player, MP-3 or CD player, or cell phone. In particular, cell phone use is forbidden in many hospitals since it may interfere with electronic patient monitoring equipment. Don’t forget that high-end electronic items can also be targets for theft – if you are allowed to bring them, make sure that a relative or friend takes them home or that they can be safely stored when you’re sleeping or not in your room.

Now, wait a minute. I get it that MedicineNet may be referring to the day after surgery. But, in my case, that means I prepare a bag and give it to my daughter to bring the next day. The staff at the surgeon’s office did tell me the hospital will provide a toothbrush and toothpaste, but will they allow me to bring the BiPap that I use for sleep apnea or the mouth piece I sleep with to prevent my jaw from locking? Let’s look again.

U.S. News has some of the same items on their list at https://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/slideshows/11-items-to-pack-in-your-hospital-bag?onepage :

“To recap, here are 11 items to pack in your hospital bag.

• Loose, warm and comfortable clothing.
• Your own pillow.
• Your own toiletries.
• Flip-flops.
• Earplugs and earphones.
• Comfort flicks.
• Escapist books.
• Laundry lists: of your medications, doctors and family and friends.
• Pen and paper.
• Scents.
• Drugstore supplies.”

They also make a really good point about bringing you own medications and toiletries so you’re not being charged for them by the hospital. I would avoid the scents just because so many people are scent sensitive these days.

 

I was still a bit confused, so I went to my hospital’s website. I learned that not only are cell phones permitted, but Wi-Fi is offered for free. Great. What more can I find out about what to pack, I wondered. My biggest desire was for Shiloh, my comfort dog, to be with me but I knew that wasn’t going to happen.

I thought VeryWellHealth at https://www.verywellhealth.com/what-to-pack-for-the-hospital-3157006 was more realistic about what to pack and I especially appreciated the warnings about electronics:

“You won’t have a lot of space to store things, so try to fit everything you need into a standard roll-on bag. Be sure that is well labeled and is lockable as an extra layer of security.

Among the things you should include on your packing checklist:

• Personal medications, preferably in their original container so that the nurse can find them for you if you are unable to reach them
• A list of your current medications to add to your hospital chart, including names, dosages, and dosing schedule
• Comfortable pajamas (loose-fitting is best)
• A light robe for modesty, especially in a shared room
• Slippers with rubber soles (to prevent slipping)
• Plenty of socks and underwear
• Toothbrush, toothpaste, and deodorant
• Hairbrush or comb
• Soap, skin care products, and hair care products if you prefer your own (ideally travel size)
• Special needs products like tampons, sanitary pads, or denture cream
• Glasses (which may be easier than contacts if you think you’ll be dozing a lot)
• Outfit to wear home (something loose is best, also make sure it won’t rub on your incision)
• A cell phone charger for your cell phone
• Your laptop charger if you intend to bring one
• Earplugs if you are ​a light sleeper
• An eyemask if you are used to black-out curtains
• Entertainment such as books, a portable DVD player, puzzles, or magazines
• Earbuds or earphones for your P3 or DVD player
• Non-perishable snacks, especially if you have dietary concerns (such as diabetes or chronic medications that need to be taken with high-fat foods)”

One quick call to the hospital to see if they have any additions to make to these lists and I’m ready to pack. How about you?

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Adult Toys

In keeping with my promise to myself that August would be answer-readers’-questions month, this week I’ll be writing about the occupational therapy toys a reader asked about. Did you think I meant the other kind of adult toys? Hmmm, maybe it would make sense to know why toys are used in dealing with neuropathy in the first place.

As my occupational therapist explained it, the therapy toys are used to stimulate the nerve endings to bud so that new pathways may be created. I don’t fully understand it, but this is what I wrote in my July 29^th blog:

“I have a bag of toys. Each has a different sensory delivery on my hands and feet. For example, there’s a woven metal ring that I run up and down my fingers and toes, then up my arms and legs. I do the same with most of the other toys: a ball with netting over it, another with rubber strings hanging from it. I also have a box of uncooked rice to rub my feet and hands in… and lots of other toys. The idea is to desensitize my hands and feet.”

Ah, but now we know these therapy toys are used for more. Desensitization? Good. Building new pathways for sensations? Better. Yes, I want my hands and feet to stop feeling so tingly all the time, but I also want to be able to feel whatever it is I’m holding or touching. Remember, for me, this was an unexpected side effect of chemotherapy, although it could have just as easily been diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Aha! Now you see why I’ve included this in the blog posts in the first place: Diabetes is the number one cause of Chronic Kidney Disease.

Ready to explore some therapy toys? Well, all rightee. Let’s start with my favorite, the one I call the smoosh ball. Oh, since I bought a bag full of these different therapy toys on Amazon, none were labeled so I made up my own names for them. Hey, I’m a writer. I can get away with that.

This one is soft and rubbery. It’s the “another with rubber strings hanging from it,” mentioned above that I rub on my toes and up my legs, then my fingers and up my arms as I do with most of these therapy toys. It causes the loveliest goose bumps. I’m surprised that Shiloh, our 80 pound dog, doesn’t go after it just for the way it seems to shimmer. I also squeeze the smoosh ball with each hand.

The opposite of the smoosh ball is the steel ring. This one is almost painful if I’m not careful. In addition to using it on my hands, arms, fingers, and toes as I did the smoosh ball, I also use it as a ring on each toe and finger moving it up and down. Notice I’m not mentioning how many repetitions I do for each of the therapy toys. That’s because everyone is different. Your neuropathy may be worse than mine, or – hopefully – not as bad as mine.

The pea pod is the hardest therapy toy for me to use. The idea is to squeeze the pod to cause the peas to pop up one by one. Sounds easy, right? Nope. You need to isolate these fingers you can’t even feel until you get the right ones pressing on the right places to make that little fellow pop out.

The brush is a comforting therapy toy. I wonder if this is why horses like being curried (brushed). It’s a soft, rubber brush which feels almost luxuriant as I rub it up my fingers, arms, toes, and legs. It was also the first therapy toy I was introduced to since the occupational therapist used it during my first treatment.

Then there’s the ball with the netting around it. I do the usual rub the fingers, arms, toes, and legs with it. I also squeeze it like a stress ball. It feels completely different than the smoosh ball and even makes a sort of flatulence sound when I squeeze it. Well, that was unexpected.

I have a small ball that looks like a globe. Maybe that’s because children use these therapy toys, too? All I can figure out to do with this is to squeeze it like a stress ball. I’ll have to remember to ask the occupational therapist if that’s what it’s meant for.

The little beads can defeat me. The idea is to place them in a bowl and then pick them up using your thumb and the different fingers one at a time. At first, I was using my long nails to pick them up. Once I realized what I was doing, I cut my nails. It is surprising to me to realize how weak some of my fingers are as compared to how strong others are.

The mesh has a bead in it. You move it back and forth from one end of the mesh to the other, using each finger plus your thumb individually. Of course, this one feels really good on the toes, legs, fingers, and arms because it’s a soft mesh (but not as soft as the mesh on the net ball).

The snake is a long piece of soft rubber. Before I execute the usual rubbing on the toes, legs, fingers, and arms, I use it the way you use an elastic band for stretching across your chest. It is more flexible than you’d think.

Not part of my bag of tricks – I mean therapy toys – is the foot roller. This is another therapy toy I bought on Amazon after trying one out at an occupational therapy treatment.  Have you ever heard the expression ‘hurts so good?’ That’s what this feels like while you roll it back and forth under your feet. Lest you get me wrong, it does not hurt enough to make you want to stop, just enough to make those tingly feet tingle even more.

I also do stretching exercises for my hands, place my feet in rice, and try to pick up a wash cloth with my toes. It takes a long time to exercise, but I think it’s worth it.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

But Why?

As Chronic Kidney Disease patients, we all know that proteinuria is one indication of our disease. Would you like a reminder about what proteinuria is? Here’s one from The American Kidney Fund at http://www.kidneyfund.org/kidney-disease/kidney-problems/protein-in-urine.html:

“Healthy kidneys remove extra fluid and waste from your blood, but let proteins and other important nutrients pass through and return to your blood stream. When your kidneys are not working as well as they should, they can let some protein (albumin) escape through their filters, into your urine. When you have protein in your urine, it is called proteinuria (or albuminuria). Having protein in your urine can be a sign of nephrotic syndrome, or an early sign of kidney disease.”

I used to think that’s all it was: an indicator of CKD. That is until my occupational therapist and I got to talking about the edema caused by neuropathy.

Ah! Flash! We did also talk about Havimat which I wrote about last week and I checked on a number of sites to see if it were safe for an active tumor. The consensus of the sites agreed it was safe to use on someone with an active tumor that was being treated as long as it was not used on the location of the tumor itself. I feel better now about having had three sessions with Havimat since the occupational therapist was careful not to use it anywhere near my pancreas – the site of the tumor.

But I digress. Back to the topic at hand: proteinuria. It seems that protein is needed in the body, rather than being excreted in the urine. You guessed it. My question became the topic of today’s blog: But Why?

According to WebMD at https://www.webmd.com/men/features/benefits-protein#1:

“Protein is an important component of every cell in the body. Hair and nails are mostly made of protein. Your body uses protein to build and repair tissues. You also use protein to make enzymes, hormones, and other body chemicals. Protein is an important building block of bones, muscles, cartilage, skin, and blood.”

Okay, got it that protein is very necessary but what does that have to do with the chemotherapy I had that seemed to cause the proteinuria problem?  After looking at bunches of different sites (Today’s blog is taking a very long time to write.), I gleaned a little hint here and a little hint there until I figured out that certain types of chemotherapy may make proteinuria worse if you already have it, or cause it. Boo for me; I lost on that one since I already had proteinuria.

Well, what about the edema from the neuropathy? Was proteinuria affecting that in some way? Or did I have it backwards and it was the neuropathy that was causing the edema. I went to eMedicineHealth at https://www.emedicinehealth.com/neuropathy/article_em.htm#what_is_neuropathy for some help with this.

“Certain drugs and medications can cause nerve damage. Examples include cancer therapy drugs such as vincristine(Oncovin, Vincasar), and antibiotics such as metronidazole (Flagyl), and isoniazid (Nydrazid, Laniazid).”

This little tidbit is from MedicalNewsToday at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323481.php :

“Chemotherapy can damage nerves that affect feeling and movement in the hands and feet. Doctors call this condition chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). Symptoms can be severe and may affect a person’s quality of life.”

By the way, diabetic neuropathy is another form of peripheral neuropathy.

Uh-oh, now what do I do? The HonorHealth Research Institute in Scottsdale, Arizona, where I’m being treated offered both the gabapentin for the pain (which I skipped since I want to try non-drug treatment first) and occupational therapy. Let’s see what that might do for me. Please note that occupational therapy works at reducing the pain of the neuropathy.

I have a bag of toys. Each has a different sensory delivery on my hands and feet. For example, there’s a woven metal ring that I run up and down my fingers and toes, then up my arms and legs. I do the same with most of the other toys: a ball with netting over it, another with rubber strings hanging from it. I also have a box of uncooked rice to rub my feet and hands in… and lots of other toys. The idea is to desensitize my hands and feet.

I was also given physical exercises to do, like raising my fisted hands above my head and straightening out my fist several times.  This is one of many exercises. Do you remember the old TV show, E.R? It takes me slightly longer than one 43 minute episode to complete the exercises.

When I go to see the therapist, she uses the Havimat (electrical stimulation), another machine that sucks the chemo out (no kidding… and it doesn’t hurt either.), and a third that pulses. I am amazed at how the edema disappears when she uses these. But, unfortunately, the effect doesn’t stay very long. Compression socks have helped and, despite their not-so-pleasing appearance are quite comfortable.

Wow! Proteinuria is so much more than just an indication that you may have Chronic Kidney Disease.

Ready for a topic change? The following is part of an email I received from KDIGO (Kidney Disease – Improving Global Outcomes).

“We … invite your comments at any time.  Suggest topics, look for opportunities for KDIGO to implement its work in your area, bring new ideas to us, and help us become more relevant to the lives of patients like you. As a global organization, we seek to continue to develop communication channels to patients throughout the world.  This is difficult to do from one perspective, but if we work together we can build a robust base of individuals and ideas that will help us plan and carry out our mission.

KDIGO doesn’t have any members or local entities to whom we are accountable.  We only are accountable to you, our patients.  Outcomes of your care are our mission.  We can do it better if you work with us and give us your constructive input.

Again, thanks for letting us know you’d like to be a part of this global effort.  Your ideas are welcome and will be taken into account. “

Keep those comments coming, folks. Their email is kdigocommunications@kdigo.org.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Platelets Keep It Together

During my chemo journey, I’ve needed an infusion of platelets several times. Chronic Kidney Disease patients sometimes need them, too, but I’ll write about that later on in this blog. First question from the audience?

Oh, that’s a good one: What are platelets? This is from my very first CKD book, What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease and will help to explain.

“1. The white blood cells makeup your immune system. There are usually from 7,000 to 25,000 WBC in a drop of blood, but if you have an infection, that number rises since these are the infection fighting blood cells.

2. The red blood cells, also called erythrocytes, carry oxygen to the other cells in your body – so the higher the number here the better – and waste such as carbon dioxide from them. There are approximately five billion red blood cells – the midsized cells – in a single drop of your blood.

3. The platelets deal with the blood’s clotting ability by repairing leaks in your blood vessels. Normally, there are 150,000 to 350,000 platelets in one drop of blood.”

I’ve included all three types of blood cells as we just might need that information later on.

Okay, how about another question? What’s that? You want to know how you know if your platelets are decreased? When you have blood tests, one of them is usually the CBC or Complete Blood Count. Let’s see if we can find more information from The Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/complete-blood-count/about/pac-20384919.

“A complete blood count (CBC) is a blood test used to evaluate your overall health and detect a wide range of disorders, including anemia, infection and leukemia.

A complete blood count test measures several components and features of your blood, including:

Red blood cells, which carry oxygen

White blood cells, which fight infection

Hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying protein in red blood cells

Hematocrit, the proportion of red blood cells to the fluid component, or plasma, in your blood

Platelets, which help with blood clotting”

If your doctors are anything like mine, I have one every three months for my primary care doctor, an annual CBC for my nephrologist, and weekly for my oncologist.

Now, remember the normal range of platelets is 150,000 to 350,000 platelets in one drop of blood. Mine were 16,000. Sure, it was the chemotherapy that was killing my platelets, but it was also the chemotherapy that was shrinking the tumor and lowering the tumor markers in my CA19-9 (blood test for tumor markers in pancreatic cancer). I couldn’t stop the chemotherapy, but my doctors could raise my platelets via infusion.

Young man in the back? Nice! He wants to know what the difference between infusion and transfusion is.  According to The Free Dictionary’s Medical Dictionary at https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/infusion, infusion means

1. the steeping of a substance in water to obtain its soluble principles.

2. the product obtained by this process.

3. the slow therapeutic introduction of fluid other than blood into a vein.

That’s right. The third definition is the one we need.

Using the same source, this time at https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/transfusion, we learn that transfusion means

“Transfusion is the process of transferring whole blood or blood components from one person (donor) to another (recipient).”

By the way, there’s quite a bit of other information about transfusions on this page.

Let’s talk about platelet infusions and CKD patients now. UpToDate at https://www.uptodate.com/contents/platelet-dysfunction-in-uremia  offers the following, but we may need a bit of hand holding to understand it:

“The association between renal dysfunction and bleeding was recognized more than 200 years ago…. However, there remains an incomplete understanding of the underlying pathophysiology. Impaired platelet function is one of the main determinants of uremic bleeding. This impairment is due largely to incompletely defined inhibitors of platelet function in the plasma of patients with markedly reduced kidney function. Abnormal platelet-endothelial interaction and anemia also play a role.”

Do you remember what uremic means? No problem … come along with me to visit my old buddy, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/uremia

“1: accumulation in the blood of constituents normally eliminated in the urine that produces a severe toxic condition and usually occurs in severe kidney disease

2: the toxic bodily condition associated with uremia”

Let’s use the same dictionary, this time at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/endothelial, for the definition of endothelial, which is the adjective or describing word for endothelium.

“1: an epithelium of mesodermal origin composed of a single layer of thin flattened cells that lines internal body cavities and the lumens of vessels

2: the inner layer of the seed coat of some plants”

You guessed it: the first definition is the one we need. I think all the pieces are in place for you to understand the need for the right number of platelets and that platelet infusions are sometimes necessary. Too bad I didn’t before my white blouses and nightgowns were stained by the blood leaking from my nose (and other places too delicate to mention). Oh well, I can always buy more clothes.

New topic. I’ve written about All of Us Research several times and received this email from them this week.

“In case you missed it, we introduced our new Data Browser at the All of Us Research Program symposium on May 6th. The Data Browser is an interactive tool that lets you learn more about the health data that you and all the other participants have contributed so far. Currently in beta testing, it lets you search by topics like health conditions, survey questions, and physical measurements, and will include more data over time.

 We invite you to take a look at the Data Browser and let us know what you think. If you have feedback, you can email support@ResearchAllofUs.org.”

The URL for the Data Browser is https://databrowser.researchallofus.org.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Clinical Trials Day

By now, you probably all know that I chose a clinical trial to treat my pancreatic cancer. But did you know that today, May 20th, is Clinical Trials Day? What’s that, you ask? Let’s find out together. According to The Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP) at http://www.clinicaltrialsday.org/:

“WHY MAY 20?

Clinical Trials Day is celebrated around the world in May to recognize the day that James Lind started what is often considered the first randomized clinical trial aboard a ship on May 20, 1747.

HERE’S THE STORY

May, 1747.

The HMS Salisbury of Britain’s Royal Navy fleet patrols the English Channel at a time when scurvy is thought to have killed more British seamen than French and Spanish arms.

Aboard this ship, surgeon mate James Lind, a pioneer of naval hygiene, conducts what many refer to as the first clinical trial.

Acting on a hunch that scurvy was caused by putrefaction of the body that could be cured through the introduction of acids, Lind recruited 12 men for his ‘fair test.’…

---

From The James Lind Library:

Without stating what method of allocation he used, Lind allocated two men to each of six different daily treatments for a period of fourteen days. The six treatments were: 1.1 litres of cider; twenty-five millilitres of elixir vitriol (dilute sulphuric acid); 18 millilitres of vinegar three times throughout the day before meals; half a pint of sea water; two oranges and one lemon continued for six days only (when the supply was exhausted); and a medicinal paste made up of garlic, mustard seed, dried radish root and gum myrrh.…

Those allocated citrus fruits experienced ‘the most sudden and good visible effects,’ according to Lind’s report on the trial.

Though Lind, according to The James Lind Library, might have left his readers ‘confused about his recommendations’ regarding the use of citrus in curing scurvy, he is ‘rightly recognized for having taken care to “‘compare like with like’’, and the design of his trial may have inspired ‘and informed future clinical trial design.'”

I’ve written about James Lind before, so you may want to re-read the 8/20/18 blog to read more about him and his experiments.

Time travel to 2019 with me, if you will, to read what Antidote.Me has to offer in the way of Chronic Kidney Disease Clinical Trials.

****

Headline: Chronic Kidney Disease Research: How to Get Involved

By Nancy Ryerson

May 20 is Clinical Trials Day. Every year, patient advocates and research groups participate to raise awareness of how clinical trial participation drives research progress. You may know that new treatments for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) can’t move forward without clinical trial volunteers, but you may not know how to find active, relevant trials in your area.

Below, you’ll find answers to commonly asked questions about finding CKD clinical trials, including who can join, how to find trials, and the kinds of questions CKD research aims to answer.

How can I find Chronic Kidney Disease clinical trials near me?

There are currently 171 research studies for CKD looking for volunteers in the United States. All clinical trials are listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, but because the website was developed with researchers in mind rather than patients, it can be difficult for patients to navigate. Antidote is a clinical trial matching company that provides a patient-friendly clinical trial search tool to health nonprofits and bloggers, including this blog. With the Antidote tool, you can answer a few questions about your medical history and where you’d like to find a trial to receive a list of trials you may qualify for in your area. You can also sign up to receive alerts when new trials are added near you.

Who can join CKD clinical trials?

 It’s a common misconception that clinical trials only need volunteers who have been recently diagnosed to take part. It’s also untrue that clinical trials are only a “last resort” for patients who have exhausted other options. In reality, clinical trials can be a care option for patients at any point after diagnosis. CKD trials need volunteers with mild, moderate, and severe kidney disease to participate in different trials. Some trials also look for patients with specific comorbidities, such as hypertension. 

What does CKD research typically focus on? 

Clinical trials for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) research potential new treatments to slow or stop CKD, as well as treat common conditions associated with CKD, such as anemia or hypertension.

CKD clinical trials aren’t limited to research into new drugs, either. For example, a kidney-friendly diet can make a significant difference in reducing kidney damage, and more research is needed into specific interventions that can help. Research studies are also looking into the impact exercise can have on CKD symptoms and progression.

Clinical trials may also be observational. These kinds of trials don’t test an intervention – a drug, diet, lifestyle change, etc. Instead, participants are divided into groups and observed for differences in outcome. 

Do clinical trials always use a placebo? 

In clinical trials, placebos – also known as “sugar pills” – help researchers understand the effectiveness of an experimental treatment. While they can be an important part of the research process, it’s also understandable that patients hope they won’t receive the placebo in a clinical trial.

If you’re considering taking part in a trial but you’re concerned about receiving a placebo, it’s important to know that not all trials use one. Many trials test a potential new treatment against the standard of care, for example. In some trials that use a placebo, everyone in the trial may receive the study drug at some point during the trial. 

I don’t have time to participate in a clinical trial.

Time restraints are another reason many patients hesitate to participate in clinical trials. While some clinical trials may require weekly site visits, others may only ask participants to come in every month or so. Some trials may also offer virtual visits online or home visits to help reduce the number of trips you’ll need to take to get to a site. When you’re considering joining a clinical trial, ask the study team any questions you have about the trial schedule, reimbursement for travel, or anything else about participation.

Interested in finding a trial near you? Use the SlowItDownCKD trial search, powered by Antidote, to start your search. (Gail here: It’s at the bottom right hand side of the blog roll.)

Ladies and Gentleman, start your motors! I hope you find just the right CKD Clinical Trial for you.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Oh, the Places You’ll Go!

Thank you to Dr. Seuss for lending us the title of today’s blog. Oh, you haven’t heard of him yet? According to Encyclopaedia Britannica at https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dr-Seuss:

“Dr. Seuss, pseudonym of Theodor Seuss Geisel, (born March 2, 1904, Springfield, Massachusetts, U.S.—died September 24, 1991, La Jolla, California), American writer and illustrator of immensely popular children’s books, which were noted for their nonsense words, playful rhymes, and unusual creatures.”

And why begin the blog with the title of his book you ask. Last month, I received an email from booknowmed.com. Now, I’m not endorsing this new company since I’m not on dialysis and so have not made use of their services myself. However, after reading about the difficulties my dialysis readers were having finding a clinic while they traveled, I was intrigued. Could this be another way to lessen the burden of being on dialysis?

This is from that email:

“What is booknowmed.com?

Whether you travel for holidays or for work, with booknowmed.com you can now find dialysis clinics that have availability for your treatment dates and book your treatments on the spot, anywhere in the World. And most importantly, booknowmed.com is FREE for patients.

• Browse 440+ dialysis centers, in 380 destinations across 5 continents.
• Find clinics that have availability based on your search criteria.
• Know the price of treatment, before booking.
• See ratings and read reviews from previous patients at the clinic.
• Book your treatments on the spot in safety.
• No booking fees, no hidden costs.
• Track the progress of your booking, directly from your account.

Booknowmed.com is supported by the European Union and 60 national Kidney Patient Associations globally.”

Based on this alone, I asked Vassia Efstathiou, the User Experience Manager, if she’d be interested in guest blogging… and she was.  This is what she had to say, with just a bit of editing from me.

“Free booking engine for dialysis treatments? Dream or reality?

Travelling while on dialysis is a challenge on its own. Consider having to research, book and coordinate your dialysis treatments abroad. This process can be particularly stressful for dialysis patients, especially when faced with language barriers, lack of information – like the availability of clinics and cost of treatments- and, of course, safety concerns.

Many dialysis patients know this already but the power of the Internet alone cannot do much in this case. So it is definitely good news to hear that the first booking engine for holiday dialysis is live, and even better news to see that it actually works. Let alone the fact that it is free for patients!

Since its launch, thousands of dialysis patients have used booknowmed.com to book more than 27,000 treatments around the globe.

booknowmed.com allows dialysis patients to browse, find and book their dialysis treatments anywhere in the World. We are talking literally – anywhere.

By visiting booknowmed.com you will be able to browse more than 450 dialysis centers in 380 destinations, across five continents. This includes standard holiday options like Spain, Greece, and Turkey, as well some less ordinary destinations like Bali, Sri Lanka, Miami, Brazil and Argentina. Cuba, Barbados, and Curacao are coming up this month.

Bookings are completely free for patients, meaning there are no booking or other hidden costs. Overall the platform is very user-friendly and the booking process is very simple:

1. Patients select their treatment dates and desired destination.
2. They are then presented with a list of the clinics that match their search criteria and – most importantly – have availability for the requested dates.
3. Booking is completed after a simple registration process, which is there for safety reasons. The process takes three minutes and includes registering the patient’s full name, email, and telephone number.

But let’s examine what differentiates booknowmed.com to the online directories currently available to dialysis patients.

Firstly, we are talking about a booking engine where you can book your treatments on the spot. In contrast to online directories, booknowmed.com allows you to know the availability and price before booking. You can select your exact treatment dates and preferred shift, and complete your booking without picking up the phone or waiting for a reply that takes weeks. Consider that the average booking time on booknowmed.com is six minutes compare to 15 days, the average booking time when you contact the clinic directly or go through a directory service.

Secondly, you have a wide variety of options to choose from, not only in terms of destination but also in terms of the type of the medical facility. booknowmed.com offers the largest network of independent dialysis centers. From global leaders – like Diaverum – to public and private hospitals as well as independent state-of-the-art clinics around the globe.

Thirdly, the simplicity of the booking process itself.

And last, but definitely not least, the great features offered to patients, which promote transparency and allow them to have all the information in hand before booking. These include:

• Know the price of treatment before booking.
• Use smart filters to narrow down your research. If you are an EU patient, for example, you can select to be presented with only the clinics that accept the EHIC.
• See ratings and read reviews written by real patients who have completed treatment at this particular clinic.
• Track the progress of your booking through your account. All the details of the booking including the exact time frame of the treatment, contact details of the clinic, and even a map with instructions on how to get there can be found in your account.

booknowmed.com was created by professionals with years of expertise in renal healthcare and the goal to serve a true need for patients. It has received the support of the European Union as well as of national kidney patient associations globally.

The company has plans to expand the functionalities of the platform, with the goal to become a 360o platform serving various everyday needs of renal patients, from nutrition and supplements to an online database and the online exchange of medical reports.

booknowmed.com is the living proof that we have entered a new era for dialysis patients, who can now find and book treatments abroad, with no hassle, no risk, and no language barriers.

Gail here, hoping this is exactly what you’ve been looking for to make your travel while on dialysis an easier experience for you.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

 

CKD and Me

Okay, so I was finally ready to give up World Kidney Day and National Kidney Month. Maybe it’s time to give up the 1in9 chapter contribution, too. Since each contributing author also had their biography accompanying their chapter, I think the best way to do that is to print the biography… although it’s all me, me, me. Indulge me, please.

*****

Ms. Rae-Garwood’s writing started out as a means to an end for a single parent with two children and a need for more income than her career as a NYC teacher afforded. Gail retired from both college teaching and acting – after a bit of soul searching about where her CKD limited energy would be best spent – early in 2013. Since her diagnose, Ms. Rae-Garwood writes most often about Chronic Kidney Disease, although she does write fiction. She has a three time award winning weekly blog (Surprise!) about this topic at https://gailraegarwood.wordpress.com and social media accounts as @SlowItDownCKD.

*****

Hmmm, it seems to me I’ve done a lot more with Chronic Kidney Disease awareness advocacy since I started with this in 2010. Let’s see what else there is. Aha! These are on my website at www.gail-raegarwood.com.

 

Arizona Health & Living  (West Valley)  6/2018

 

MyTherapy Guest Blog    3/8/18

​

eCareDiary: Coping with Chronic Kidney  Disease  3/06/18

​

NephJC: One More Patient Voice on CKD Staging and Precision Medicine  12/08/16

 

Center for Science in the Public Interest: Nutrition Action Healthletter   9/16

​

New York State United Teachers: It’s What We Do   8/9/16

​

American Kidney Fund: Slowing DownCKD – It Can Be Done   7/14/16

​

The Edge Podcast  5/19/16

​

Dear Annie   3/10/14

​

Renal Diet Headquarters Podcast   2/12/14

 

Accountable Kidney Care Collaborative: Bob’s Blog   1/23/14

​

Wall Street Journal: Patients Can Do More to Control Chronic Conditions  1/13/14

​

The Neuropathy Doctor’s News   9/23/13

​

Series of five Monthly CKD education classes in The Salt River Pima-Maricopa

Indian Community   9/12/13

 

KidneySteps: Gail Rae and SlowItDown  9/11/13

​

Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community: 4th Annual Men and Women’s Gathering  8/29/13

​

National Kidney Foundation: Staying Healthy  6/6/13

​

KidneySteps: Learning Helps with CKD    7/04/12

​

Life Options Links for Patients and Professionals   5/30/12

​

It Is Just What It Is    3/9/12

​

Online with Andrea    03/07/12

 

Working with Chronic Illness  2/17/12

 

Libre Tweet Chat with Gail Rae   1/10/12

​

Kevinmd.com   1/1/12

​

Improve Your Kidney Health with Dr. Rich Snyder, DO   11/21/11

​

Glendale Community College Gaucho Gazette   8/22/11

 

The NephCure Foundation   8/21/11

​

Authors Show Radio    8/8/11

​

Renal Support Network: Another 30 Years  1/11/10

​

Working with Chronic Illness: Are You Aching to Write    1/11/10

I’m going to keep today’s blog very short so you have the time to click though on the hyperlinked podcasts and articles. When I was teaching college, my students thoroughly enjoyed the time to choose what they’d like to hear or read from a prescribed list. I hope it’s the same for you.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

World Kidney Day, 2019

Will you look at that? The world keeps moving on no matter what’s going on in our personal lives. And so, I recognize that Thursday of this week is World Kidney Day. In honor of this occasion, I’ve chosen to update last year’s World Kidney Day blog… so sit back and enjoy the read.

…World Kidney Day? What’s that? I discovered this is a fairly new designation. It was only thirteen years ago that it was initiated.

 

According to http://worldkidneyday.org,

“World Kidney Day is a global awareness campaign aimed at raising awareness of the importance of our kidneys.”

Sound familiar?  That’s where I’m heading with What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease; SlowItDownCKD 2011; SlowItDownCKD 2012; SlowItDownCKD 2013; SlowItDownCKD 2014; SlowItDownCKD 2015; SlowItDownCKD 2016; SlowItDownCKD 2017; Facebook; Instagram; LinkedIn; Pinterest; Twitter; and this blog. We may be running along different tracks, but we’re headed in the same direction.

The 59 year old International Society of Nephrology (ISN) – a non-profit group spreading over 155 countries – is one part of the equation for their success.  Another is the International Federation of Kidney Foundations with membership in over 40 countries. Add a steering committee and The World Kidney Day Team and you have the makings of this particular concept….

According to their website at https://www.theisn.org/advocacy/world-kidney-day :

“The mission of World Kidney Day is to raise awareness of the importance of our kidneys to our overall health and to reduce the frequency and impact of kidney disease and its associated health problems worldwide.

Objectives:

• Raise awareness about our ‘amazing kidneys’
• Highlight that diabetes and high blood pressure are key risk factors for Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
• Encourage systematic screening of all patients with diabetes and hypertension for CKD
• Encourage preventive behaviors
• Educate all medical professionals about their key role in detecting and reducing the risk of CKD, particularly in high risk populations
• Stress the important role of local and national health authorities in controlling the CKD epidemic.”

While there are numerous objectives for this year’s World Kidney Day, the one that lays closest to my heart is this one: ‘Encourage systematic screening of all patients with diabetes and hypertension for CKD.’

Back to World Kidney Day’s website at https://www.worldkidneyday.org  now, if you please.

This year’s theme is Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere.

Their site offers materials and ideas for events as well as a map of global events. Prepare to be awed at how wide spread World Kidney Day events are.

Before you leave their page, take a detour to Kidney FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) on the toolbar at the top of the page.  You can learn everything you need to know from what the kidneys do to what the symptoms (or lack thereof) of CKD are, from how to treat CKD to a toolbox full of helpful education about your kidneys to preventative measures.

If only my nurse practitioner had been aware of National Kidney Month or World Kidney Day, she could have warned me immediately that I needed to make lifestyle changes so the decline of my kidney function could have been slowed down earlier. How much more of my kidney function would I still have if I’d known earlier? That was a dozen years ago. This shouldn’t still be happening… but it is.

I received a phone call a few years ago that just about broke my heart.  Someone very dear to me sobbed, “He’s dying.” When I calmed her down, she explained a parent was sent to a nephrologist who told him he has end stage renal disease and needed dialysis or transplantation immediately.

I pried a little trying to get her to admit he’d been diagnosed before end stage, but she simply didn’t know what I was talking about. There had been no diagnose of Chronic Kidney Disease up to this point. There was diabetes, apparently out of control diabetes, but no one impressed upon this man that diabetes is the foremost cause of CKD.

What a waste of the precious time he could have had to do more than stop smoking, which he did (to his credit), the moment he was told it would help with the diabetes.  Would he be where he was then if his medical practitioners had been aware of National Kidney Month or World Kidney Day, especially since this man was high risk due to his age and diabetes?  I fervently believe so.

I have a close friend who was involved in the local senior center where she lives.  She said she didn’t know anyone else but me who had this disease.  Since 1 out of every 7 people does nationally (That’s 15% of the adult population) and being over 60 places you in a high risk group, I wonder how many of her friends were included in the 96% of those in the early stage of CKD who don’t know they have CKD or don’t even know they need to be tested.  I’d have rather been mistaken here, but I’m afraid I wasn’t. National Kidney Month or World Kidney Day could have helped them become aware.

For those of you who have forgotten (Easily read explanations of what results of the different items on your tests mean are in What Is It And How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease.), all it takes is a blood test and a urine test to detect CKD.  I have routine blood tests every three months to monitor a medication I’m taking.  It was in this test, a test I took anyway, that my family physician uncovered Chronic Kidney Disease as a problem.

There is so much free education about CKD online. Maybe you can start with the blogroll on the right side of the blog or hit “Apps” on the Topics Dropdown. None of us needs to hear another sorrowful, “If only I had known!”

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

National Kidney Month, 2019

Anyone remember LOL? It’s older internet shorthand for Laughing Out Loud. That’s what I’m doing right now. Why? Because, after all these years of blogging, I’ve just realized that I compose my opening paragraph as I’m waking up. Still in bed, mind you. Still half asleep. Isn’t the brain wonderful?

This is my half asleep composition for this morning: March is National Kidney Month. That’s not to be confused with March 14^th, which is World Kidney Day. So, today, we address the nation. Next week, the world.

As usual, let’s start at the beginning. What is National Kidney Month? Personalized Cause at https://www.personalizedcause.com/health-awareness-cause-calendar/national-kidney-month has a succinct explanation for us. By the way, while I’m not endorsing them since the site is new to me, I should let you know they sell the green ribbons for National Kidney Month that you’ll probably be seeing hither and yon all month.

“National Kidney Month, observed in March and sponsored by the National Kidney Foundation, is a time to increase awareness of kidney disease, promote the need for a cure, and spur advocacy on behalf of those suffeing (sic) with the emotional, financial and physical burden of kidney disease. The National Kidney Foundation is the leading organization in the U.S. dedicated to the awareness, prevention and treatment of kidney disease for hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals, millions of patients and their families, and tens of millions of Americans at risk.” That, of course, prompted me to go directly to the National Kidney Foundation’s information about National Kidney Month at https://www.kidney.org/news/monthly/Focus_KidneyMonth.

“Focus on the Kidneys During National Kidney Month in March

March is National Kidney Month and the NKF is urging all Americans to give their kidneys a second thought and a well-deserved checkup. Kidneys filter 200 liters of blood a day, help regulate blood pressure and direct red blood cell production. But they are also prone to disease; 1 in 3 Americans is at risk for kidney disease due to diabetes, high blood pressure or a family history of kidney failure. There are more than 30 million Americans who already have kidney disease, and most don’t know it because there are often no symptoms until the disease has progressed. During National Kidney Month in March, and in honor of World Kidney Day on March 14, the NKF offers the following health activities to promote awareness of kidneys, risk factors and kidney disease:

• Free Screenings: On World Kidney Day and throughout the Month of March, NKF is offering free screenings to those most at risk for kidney disease – anyone with diabetes, high blood pressure or a family history of kidney failure. Locations and information can be found on the calendar on our website.
• ‘Are You at Risk’ Kidney Quiz: Early detection can make a difference in preventing kidney disease so it’s important to know if you’re at risk. Take the online kidney quiz!
• Live Twitter Chat with Dr. Joseph Vassalotti: The National Kidney Foundation’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Joseph Vassalotti, will be hosting an interactive kidney Q&A on World Kidney Day, Thursday, March 14, from 12-2 pm ET. Ask your questions at www.twitter.com/nkf using the hash-tag #WorldKidneyDayNKF.”

Wow, so much going on. This is also the month of kidney walks, like the one my daughter Nima participated in on the East Coast in my honor, or the one for which I organized a team several years ago. Actually, it’s the month specifically for anything and everything that will raise awareness of kidney disease. I’ve mentioned that I contributed a chapter to the book 1in9, which is about kidney disease. You’re right. The book launch is this month, March 6^th to be specific.

The American Kidney Fund at http://www.kidneyfund.org/take-the-pledge/ is also taking part in National Kidney Month. They have a form to fill out to take a pledge to fight kidney disease.  I signed up; you can, too, if you’d like to. I’m not comfortable with the word “fight,” but I’m not going to let that stop me from spreading awareness of the disease. I wanted to share this quote from the AKF with you, both as a CKD awareness advocate and a woman:

“‘Kidney disease is a silent killer that disproportionately affects women who are often the primary caregivers for loved ones with the disease, are more likely to become living donors but less likely to receive a transplant, and are at higher risk for CKD,’ said LaVarne A. Burton, president and chief executive officer of AKF. ‘Because women with kidney disease may also face other health issues, including infertility, pregnancy complications, bone disease and depression, AKF is using Kidney Month to let women know we are here to support them and to provide resources that will answer their questions and concerns.’”

The Renal Support Network at https://www.rsnhope.org/ is working even more emphatically to spread kidney disease awareness this month, too:

“March is National Kidney Month. This is a special time set aside to raise awareness about kidney health and activities. RSN invites members of the kidney community, our friends and our families to join in the conversation.”

This on top of their usual. For those that are not familiar with this group, the following statement is from their website.

“Since 1993 RSN has created and continues to produce a vast collection of information about kidney disease. Feel free to share our National Kidney Month page, a favorite story, KidneyTalk™ show or awareness image on social media using the hashtag #KidneyMonth and be sure to tag us @RSNhope.”

DaVita Kidney Care at https://www.davita.com/education/resources offers many resources (as the website’s title assures us) to help understand both CKD and dialysis. Some of their offerings are:

• “Organizations and Programs
• Education
• Advice & Inspiration
• Recipes & Nutrition
• Specific Kidney Diseases
• Resources 
• Health Related Portals”

If you click through on the link offered above, each item will open on a new page.

As for me, I’ll blog my brains out until more and more people are aware of kidney disease. Same goes for the Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn accounts. It’s all about kidney disease.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Bulking Up

While I make sure to state that I’m not a doctor, I’m not always certain my readers get that. This is why I was so glad that a reader asked me a question about her doctor’s advice, prefacing her question by stating that she knows I’m not a doctor. I feel better.

Her question? It’s about fiber and Chronic Kidney Disease. But first, let’s find out exactly what fiber is. According to Harvard’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health at https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/carbohydrates/fiber/,

“Fiber comes in two varieties, both beneficial to health:

• Soluble fiber, which dissolves in water, can help lower glucose levels as well as help lower blood cholesterol. Foods with soluble fiber include oatmeal, nuts, beans, lentils, apples and blueberries.

• Insoluble fiber, which does not dissolve in water, can help food move through your digestive system, promoting regularity and helping prevent constipation. Foods with insoluble fibers include wheat, whole wheat bread, whole grain couscous, brown rice, legumes, carrots, cucumbers and tomatoes.

The best sources of fiber are whole grain foods, fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, and nuts.”

We all know people need fiber, but do you know why? I found the answer stated the most succinctly on Verywell Fit’s site at https://www.verywellfit.com/all-about-fiber-2242215.

“Besides reducing the glycemic effect of meals and contributing to colon health, there is evidence that fiber may benefit us in other ways. It seems to help lower cholesterol and triglycerides, and also may help to prevent:

• Ulcers, particularly in the beginning of the small intestine (duodenal ulcers)
• Diabetes
• Heart Disease
• Cancer”

As a diabetic, I understand why I need fiber, but what about as a CKD patient? DaVita at https://www.davita.com/diet-nutrition/articles/basics/fiber-in-the-kidney-diet has that one covered:

“Adequate fiber in the kidney diet can be beneficial to people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) because it:

• Keeps GI (gastrointestinal) function healthy
• Adds bulk to stool to prevent constipation
• Prevents diverticulosis (pockets inside the colon)
• Helps increase water in stool for easier bowel movements
• Promotes regularity
• Prevents hemorrhoids
• Helps control blood sugar and cholesterol”

Hmmm, this is very similar to reasons why everyone – CKD or not – should pay attention to fiber. But, take a look at this list of high fiber foods from the Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/in-depth/high-fiber-foods/art-20050948:

Fruits                                              Serving size              

Raspberries	1 cup	8.0
Pear	1 medium	5.5
Apple, with skin	1 medium	4.5
Banana	1 medium	3.0
Orange	1 medium	3.0
Strawberries	1 cup	3.0

 

Vegetables	Serving size	Total fiber (grams)*
Green peas, boiled	1 cup	9.0
Broccoli, boiled	1 cup chopped	5.0
Turnip greens, boiled	1 cup	5.0
Brussels sprouts, boiled	1 cup	4.0
Potato, with skin, baked	1 medium	4.0
Sweet corn, boiled	1 cup	3.5
Cauliflower, raw	1 cup chopped	2.0
Carrot, raw	1 medium	1.5

 

Grains	Serving size	Total fiber (grams)*
Spaghetti, whole-wheat, cooked	1 cup	6.0
Barley, pearled, cooked	1 cup	6.0
Bran flakes	3/4 cup	5.5
Quinoa, cooked	1 cup	5.0
Oat bran muffin	1 medium	5.0
Oatmeal, instant, cooked	1 cup	5.0
Popcorn, air-popped	3 cups	3.5
Brown rice, cooked	1 cup	3.5
Bread, whole-wheat	1 slice	2.0
Bread, rye	1 slice	2.0

 

Legumes, nuts and seeds	Serving size	Total fiber (grams)*
Split peas, boiled	1 cup	16.0
Lentils, boiled	1 cup	15.5
Black beans, boiled	1 cup	15.0
Baked beans, canned	1 cup	10.0
Chia seeds	1 ounce	10.0
Almonds	1 ounce (23 nuts)	3.5
Pistachios	1 ounce (49 nuts)	3.0
Sunflower kernels	1 ounce	3.0

*Rounded to nearest 0.5 gram.

Source: USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Legacy Release

Looks delicious, doesn’t it. So what’s the problem? Well, CKD patients are restricted in their diets… and even the permissible foods are restricted as far as amounts we can eat. It all depends upon our most current lab results. Do we need less potassium? Then we need to eat even less potassium rich food. The same is true for all the electrolytes. That means our diets may not contain enough fiber.

CKD is an inflammatory disease. Fiber can lower inflammation. So what’s a CKD patient to do?

My reader was recommended supplements by her doctor. One was Solfi Green, something new to me.

I went to MIMS in the Philippines (while a new site to me, they self-describe as “Asia’s one-stop resource for medical news, clinical reference and education”)  at https://www.mims.com/philippines/drug/info/solfi%20green?type=full  for the ingredients and found this:

“Ingredients: Fructose, Mixed Fruit Powder, Mixed Vegetable Powder, Soluble Dietary Fiber, Physllium (sic) Husk, Oat Fiber, Wheat Fiber, Citric Acid, Wheat Grass, Alfalfa, Rooibos Extract, Contains Permitted Food Conditioner.”

Wait a minute, Psyllium Husk? I clearly remember writing that this can cause inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. We need to decrease, not increase inflammation as CKD patients. I would steer clear of this.

Would my reader need to steer clear if she were a dialysis or transplant patient? Drugs.com at https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/psyllium.html  doesn’t seem to think any specific dosage reduction is necessary, but they also don’t mention it can cause inflammation or that it is high in potassium. Dialysis patients, beware. If you’re a transplant, you simply need to watch your labs as you would anyway. Just keep in mind psyllium husk can be both an inflammatory and laxative.

Another supplement suggested to my reader is C-lium fiber. I went directly to their website at http://c-liumfibre.com/faq/index.html#Q15  and found this warning in their FAQ:

“If you have rectal bleeding, history of intestinal blockage, difficulty swallowing, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, hypertension, kidney disease, or if you are on a low-sugar or low-sodium diet, contact your doctor before taking C-Lium Fibre.”

Obviously, my reader has gone to her doctor since these two supplements were prescribed by her doctor. I have to make a confession here. When something is prescribed for me, I research it. If I don’t like what I find, I speak with my doctor. If she can explain in more detail or tell me something that is not in my research which I should be aware of to make an informed decision and it’s all positive, I go with the prescription. If not, well….

Of course, you have to make your own decision, just as I do. Here’s hoping this has helped my reader.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Kidney Anxiety

I clearly remember writing about how depression, grief, and stress affect your kidneys, but not about anxiety. As Bear’s pain worsens, there’s a lot of that in my house recently. I don’t understand why it’s taking so long for his doctors to decide upon a treatment plan for him, but while they do I am one anxious person.

I went directly to my old friend, the Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anxiety/symptoms-causes/syc-20350961 for a set of anxiety symptoms:

“Common anxiety signs and symptoms include:

• Feeling nervous, restless or tense
• Having a sense of impending danger, panic or doom
• Having an increased heart rate
• Breathing rapidly (hyperventilation)
• Sweating
• Trembling
• Feeling weak or tired
• Trouble concentrating or thinking about anything other than the present worry
• Having trouble sleeping
• Experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) problems
• Having difficulty controlling worry
• Having the urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety”

While I don’t have all these symptoms, there are at least four or five of them I can identify with.

Wait a minute. Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree. Is my worry about Bear’s pain really causing anxiety? I popped over to Medical News Today at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323456.php for some help in figuring out just what it is that causes anxiety.

• Environmental factors: Elements in the environment around an individual can increase anxiety. Stress from a personal relationship, job, school, or financial predicament can contribute greatly to anxiety disorders. Even low oxygen levels in high-altitude areas can add to anxiety symptoms.
• Genetics: People who have family members with an anxiety disorder are more likely to have one themselves.
• Medical factors: Other medical conditions can lead to an anxiety disorder, such as the side effects of medication, symptoms of a disease, or stress from a serious underlying medical condition that may not directly trigger the changes seen in anxiety disorder but might be causing significant lifestyle adjustments, pain, or restricted movement.
• Brain chemistry: Stressful or traumatic experiences and genetic factors can alter brain structure and function to react more vigorously to triggers that would not previously have caused anxiety. Psychologists and neurologists define many anxiety and mood disorders as disruptions to hormones and electrical signals in the brain.
• Use of or withdrawal from an illicit substance: The stress of day-to-day living combined with any of the above might serve as key contributors to an anxiety disorder.

There are items on this list which I hadn’t considered before. Years ago, when I was teaching in an old vocational high school, a student holding one of those long, heavy, solid oak window poles to open very high windows quickly spun around to answer a question and accidentally hit me in the head with the pole. That was certainly traumatic and also one of the few times I’ve been hospitalized.

We’ve pretty much figured out that there is an undiagnosed history of anxiety in the family. I’m referring to people from past generations who faced pogroms, the Depression, and even having to give up babies for adoption since that’s what was done with babies from unwed mothers in that generation. Could these folks have had anxiety disorders rather than environmental anxiety? Of course, we’ll never really know since they are long gone from this earth, but it is a thought.

Lightning Bolt!!! I remember visiting my buddy and her mother in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico not long after my own mother died and being anxious. I attributed it to still being in mourning for my mother. San Miguel de Allende has an elevation of 7,000 feet. Was that one of those “low oxygen levels in high-altitude area?” I didn’t know, but Laura Anderson author of the Gunnison Country Times’ article on Acli-Mate at https://acli-mate.com/living-at-altitude-the-pros-and-cons-of-a-high-altitude-lifestyle/ did:

“Low landers generally aren’t affected by altitude until they reach 4,500 to 5,000 feet. But after that, the affects (sic) of altitude are compounded about every 1,000 feet — so the affects (sic) of going from 6,000 feet to 7000 feet can feel the same as jumping from sea level to 4,500 feet.”

What in heaven’s name is this doing to my kidneys, I wondered. I was surprised to find an answer… in reverse. Rather than anxiety causing a kidney problem, it seems that fear of kidney disease can cause anxiety, or at least that’s what Calm Clinic at https://www.calmclinic.com/anxiety/kidney-problems claims. Be aware that they are a business and will try to sell to you if you go to their site.

• “Extra Urination Anxiety can cause more frequent urination. When you experience anxiety, the part of your brain that controls the withholding urination slows down because anxiety requires resources to be sent to other parts of your brain. This can lead to concerns over your renal health, although nothing is wrong.
• Lower Back Pain Lower back pain is also very common with anxiety. Lower back pain comes from severe stress and tension, and yet it’s associated with some conditions that affect the kidneys as well which can have many people worried about their kidney health.
• Life Experiences Anyone that suffers from anxiety and has had a friend or family member diagnosed with a terrible kidney condition is at risk for developing anxiety over the idea of poor kidneys. Anxiety can turn life experiences into very real concerns, and so kidney health concerns are one of the issues that can come up when you see it in others.”
• Urine Color Urine color is another issue that can cause anxiety. Many people check their urine color for diseases habitually, and every once in a while the color of a person’s urine may be very different than what they expect. This can create concerns that the urine color changes are due to kidney problems.”

What I find interesting is that kidney disease can cause frequent urination, too. Kidney disease may also cause lower back pain. If you know any CKD patients, you know we’re always checking the color of our urine to make certain we’re well enough hydrated.

So it seems your fear of kidney disease may cause a symptom of kidney disease… and/or possibly diabetes. All I have to say to that is make sure you take the simple urine and blood test to determine if you do really have Chronic Kidney Disease or diabetes.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

I’ll be Glowing!

Not really, but that was my first thought when a nuclear medicine (NM) test was ordered for me. It required radioactive material to be injected into my veins. The test is called NM Hepatobiliary Scan with Pharmacologic Intervention.

Let’s get a definition of hepatobiliary before we do anything else. Thank you MedicineNet at https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=19515 for this one:

“Hepatobiliary: Having to do with the liver plus the gallbladder, bile ducts, or bile. For example, MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) can be applied to the hepatobiliary system. Hepatobiliary makes sense since “hepato-” refers to the liver and “-biliary” refers to the gallbladder, bile ducts, or bile.”

That’s my kind of definition. Clear and easy for those of us who are not doctors to understand. It makes sense, too, since we were exploring what I called discomfort and my PCP called pain just under the lowest rib on my right side… very close to the gall bladder. The more than occasional nausea helped her to decide this test was necessary.

According to the test report, this is how it works:

“TECHNIQUE:

Frontal standing images of the abdomen and pelvis were obtained immediately and 30 minutes following the intravenous administration of Tc99m IDA. Pharmacologic intervention with CCK (or equivalent) and/or morphine with additional dynamic imaging was also performed.”

I didn’t know what Tc99mIDA or CCK was, so I’m guessing you don’t either.  Wikipedia at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technetium_(99mTc)_mebrofenin  tells us,

“Technetium (^99mTc) mebrofenin is a diagnostic radiopharmaceutical used for imaging of the liver and the gallbladder.”

Hmmm, we could have figured that out from the way the term is used in the context of the technique.

Let’s try CCK. This is also from Wikipedia but this time at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholecystokinin.

“Cholecystokinin (CCK or CCK-PZ; from Greek chole, “bile”; cysto, “sac”; kinin, “move”; hence, move the bile-sac (gallbladder)) is a peptide hormone of the gastrointestinal system responsible for stimulating the digestion of fat and protein. Cholecystokinin, officially called pancreozymin, is synthesized and secreted by enteroendocrine cells in the duodenum, the first segment of the small intestine.” 

Well, that’s fairly explanatory, but keep in mind that Wikipedia entries can be edited by anyone.

I know, now you want to know the results. Back to the test report:

“HIDA scan:

Gallbladder clearly visualized. Gallbladder ejection fraction calculated at 37% at 30 minutes. Greater than 35% is normal.

Study Result Impression:

Gallbladder clearly visualized. Borderline abnormal gallbladder response to cholecystokinin challenge.”

Here’s where I got lost. If my gall bladder ejection fraction is normal, how can I have a borderline abnormal gall bladder response to cholecystokinin challenge? Yep, it’s time to make an appointment with my family doctor since she ordered these tests and, being who she is, can probably explain that in terms I can understand.  More on that after next week’s liver MRI and an appointment with her to discuss the findings of both tests.

While this is all interesting, what does it have to do with the kidneys? I went back to SlowItDownCKD 2013 to find out what I’d written about that after my New York daughter’s gall bladder was removed.

“After speaking with my daughter, I still wondered what gallstones have to do with Chronic Kidney Disease.  Searching the web only garnered this one article from January, 2009 … and the study only covered Taiwan. Of course, I found it at the National Institutes of Health at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19352299.

‘The prevalence of gallbladder stones in patients with Chronic Kidney Disease is significantly higher than in those without Chronic Kidney Disease. Our findings suggest that increasing age, Chronic Kidney Disease, body mass index > or =27 kg/m {greater than 59 pounds}, metabolic syndrome, and cirrhosis are the related factors for gallbladder stone formation.’

Now think about it another way: you already have a compromised immune system because you have CKD.  Gallstones can cause infection of the gallbladder. As in Nima’s experience, infection causes white blood cell elevation. So you know you have an infection, you might even realize it could be in the bile ducts, too.  But did you check to see if there’s infection in other areas of your body? That would mean you can read your own test results or have the kind of relationship with your doctors – especially your nephrologist – to freely ask questions.

As for what this organ does, this is what MedlinePlus at https://vsearch.nlm.nih.gov/vivisimo/cgi-bin/query-meta?v%3Aproject=medlineplus&v%3Asources=medlineplus-bundle&query=gall+bladder&_ga=2.56082859.126205281.1548540376-1108406265.1544652518 had to say.

‘Your gallbladder is a pear-shaped organ under your liver. It stores bile, a fluid made by your liver to digest fat. As your stomach and intestines digest food, your gallbladder releases bile through a tube called the common bile duct. The duct connects your gallbladder and liver to your small intestine.’

Keep in mind that your liver, the largest organ in your body {The skin is actually the largest organ, but it’s external.} is the other organ that filters your blood.  Since your CKD has been diagnosed, your liver is already working harder. Add losing your gallbladder and you’ve got one very hard working – possibly overworked – liver.”

Needless to say, while I was taking this in stride, especially since my kidney function is the best it’s been in the over a decade since I’ve been diagnosed with CKD, I am now eager to have the liver MRI and get back to my primary care doctor (PCP) so she can explain what a lay person can’t understand from reading the results-  even with further researching.

A few announcements, if you please:

Our friends at @antidote_me are hosting the first of their new free monthly patient focused webinars. This one is about how medical research really works and is this Wednesday, January 30th. It’s a 15 minute webinar.  Register now: https://hubs.ly/H0gc_KV0.

Also, I write the blogs from a U.S. angle since that’s where I live. There is a new Facebook CKD support group which is from the British angle. It’s Chronic Kidney Disease Support Group for UK! Another is CKD Support UK. These are only two of several from across the sea. If you’d like to find the others, go to Facebook and in the search bar on top, enter CKD Support in UK. That little word “in” is what makes it searchable.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Take Good Care of Yourself, Caretakers.

Tonight is New Year’s Eve. We all know what that means: resolutions. While they may be a good idea and we may intend to keep them when we make them, I think we can accept that most of us don’t. So instead of resolutions, I have some recommendations for a special group of people.

I am a Chronic Kidney Disease patient, holding steady at stage 3 for the last decade. While you all know that, I’m not so sure that many of you know that I am also an Alzheimer’s care partner. That’s what the Alzheimer’s Association calls the more commonly used term ‘caretaker.’ I love my husband, but this is hard… harder than I’d expected it to be, even though I’d been a caretaker before.

For those of you not in this position, a caretaker is “one that gives physical or emotional care and support,” according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/caretaker.

The Alzheimer’s Association offered me quite a bit of advice about how to preserve my own health while being a care partner. Lori Hartwell’s Renal Support Network does, too. And then there are so many, many other organizations offering advice that always seems to be helpful. Now I offer it as recommendations to you, the care partners of your loved ones.

Why? The Family Caretaker Alliance at https://www.caregiver.org/taking-care-you-self-care-family-caregivers phrases the answer to this question so well:

“On an airplane, an oxygen mask descends in front of you. What do you do? As we all know, the first rule is to put on your own oxygen mask before you assist anyone else. Only when we first help ourselves can we effectively help others. Caring for yourself is one of the most important—and one of the most often forgotten—things you can do as a caregiver. When your needs are taken care of, the person you care for will benefit, too.”

I had trouble with this idea at first, thinking it selfish when it was my husband who needed help – not me. I was wrong. The Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/caregiver-stress/art-20044784 explains why:

As a caregiver, you may be so focused on your loved one that you don’t realize that your own health and well-being are suffering. Watch for these signs of caregiver stress:

• Feeling overwhelmed or constantly worried
• Feeling tired often
• Getting too much sleep or not enough sleep
• Gaining or losing weight
• Becoming easily irritated or angry
• Losing interest in activities you used to enjoy
• Feeling sad
• Having frequent headaches, bodily pain or other physical problems
• Abusing alcohol or drugs, including prescription medications

Too much stress, especially over a long time, can harm your health. As a caregiver, you’re more likely to experience symptoms of depression or anxiety. In addition, you may not get enough sleep or physical activity, or eat a balanced diet — which increases your risk of medical problems, such as heart disease and diabetes.

Hmmm, that would explain the irritability and overeating, I suppose. But I had to do something about this or I’d be as large as my little house soon.

Let’s get back to Lori’s site for a minute. Dr. Michael Fisher guest blogged at https://www.rsnhope.org/rsn-blog/6-tips-to-survive-your-partners-kidney-disease-diagnosis/ and offered the following as one bit of advice:

“Enlist friends and family to help you, or hire the help you need. Get a neighbor to drive the kids to and from school or enroll them in an after-school program for help with their homework; hire a housekeeper; negotiate flex-time or permission to work from home; and ask family members and friends to volunteer for regular assistance. This is an all-hands-on-deck occasion!”

He’s right. We now have a house cleaning service every other week, bottled water delivery, and a mobile vet. Decades ago when I was a caretaker for a different loved one and was in a pretty poor financial state, my friends and neighbors took my kids to school and after school activities. Family came on the weekends with marketing they’d done for us and to let me run down to the basement to do the laundry. While money makes it easier to have help, it’s not impossible to ask for help without money behind you.

U.S. News Health’s most important tip for caretakers is:

“If you’ve taken on the role of caregiver, the first thing to do is learn as much you can about your loved one’s disease or illness to know what to expect. Otherwise, you’ll be driving blind.

Imagine getting in your car, turning on the ignition, closing your eyes and then driving. What do you think will happen? Before long, you’ll crash into something or someone, resulting in damage and even injuries.

The world’s roadways operate smoothly (most of the time) because drivers know what to expect and follow the rules. Likewise, caregivers who learn more about their care recipient’s disease will be more aware of the challenges that lie ahead.”

You can find them at https://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2015/05/01/the-2-most-important-caregiver-tips.

I always go for education first; I was a teacher for over 50 years. But sometimes that just isn’t enough. I know, I couldn’t believe it either when I first realized that. So?  I started listening to the advice about how to take care of my emotions while care partnering. VeryWell Mind at https://www.verywellmind.com/caregiver-support-caregivers-and-stress-relief-3144520 offered the best recommendation for me:

“It may be difficult for you to find time alone, especially if you’re the sole provider of care, but don’t forget that you need to give to yourself in order to have the ability to give to others. However, taking an hour or two for journaling in a coffee shop, seeing a movie by yourself, getting exercise with a long walk, or going to a nearby park and immersing yourself in a good book are all excellent, restorative options that can help you to stave off burnout.”

I found I craved silence… or just listening to the birds or the horses that lived behind my house. When I could leave my husband alone and couldn’t get the silence I needed while being at home, I took off to a coffee shop with my Kindle. It helped. Hopefully these recommendations will help the caretakers among you.

Have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve.

Until next year,

Keep living your life!

Happy Holidays!

The holiday season is upon us full strength right now, but you have Chronic Kidney Disease. You don’t need the stress associated with the holiday season. The National Kidney Fund at https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/Stress_and_your_Kidneys explains why:

“As the blood filtering units of your body, your kidneys are prone to problems with blood circulation and blood vessels. High blood pressure and high blood sugar can place an additional strain or burden on your kidneys. People with high blood pressure and diabetes are at a higher risk for kidney disease. People with kidney disease are at higher risk for heart and blood vessel disease. If you already have heart and blood vessel disease and kidney disease, then the body’s reactions to stress can become more and more dangerous. Therefore, whether your goal is to prevent heart and/or kidney disease, or improve your health while living with heart and/or kidney disease, managing stress is an important part of maintaining your overall health.”

So what’s a CKD patient to do? First, you need to identify that you are stressed. In an article on caretaker stress at https://www.davita.com/education/ckd-life/caregiver/caregiver-stress-and-chronic-kidney-disease, DaVita outlined some of the symptoms. These are the same whether you’re the patient or the caretaker. I happen to be both a CKD patient and my Alzheimer’s husband’s caretaker, although we call me his care partner as suggested by the Alzheimer’s Association.

Physical signals

• Inability to sleep or sleeping too much
• Weight gain or loss
• Feeling tired all the time
• Change in posture—walking with your head down or with a stooped posture
• Chronic headaches, neck pain or back pain

Emotional signals

• Anger
• Frequent crying spells
• Inability to think clearly or concentrate
• Excessive mood swings
• Feelings of sadness that don’t go away

Behavioral signals

• Withdrawing from usual activities and relationships
• Quitting or changing jobs frequently
• Becoming more impulsive and over-reacting to things
• Using alcohol or drugs to feel better

Uh-oh, I recognize quite a few of these in myself. How about you?

Today is the last day of the eight day Chanukah celebration for us and all of you who celebrate this holiday. We usually throw a blowout party for anywhere from 30 to 50 people. But just a couple of months ago, we hosted a blowout pre-wedding potluck party for my daughter and her fiancé … and it was wonderful. Yet, it was clear that we can no longer handle undertaking such large parties. I had expressed my doubts last year about how long we’d be able to keep up the Chanukah party.

I was getting more and more stressed dealing with Bear’s medical issues and my own and then the party, so I did what I consider the logical thing to do, I delegated. We’ll still have the party, but a friend of my daughter’s will be hosting it. Instead of assigning different foods to specific guests, we’ve asked them to let us know what they’re be bringing. No prepping of the house (Shiloh sheds an entire other dog every few days) and no post party clean up. More importantly, no stress. I just bring the religious articles necessary and toss in a batch of cranberry chicken as my food contribution. Easy-peasy.

My very capable neighbor came in with cookies she’d just baked the other day. She knows about Bear’s sweet tooth. We started chatting as we’re wont to do and she brought up the point that she finds delegating stressful. Amy wants to make sure whatever it is that’s being delegated is done and done well, so she has to be careful about who she choices. I see her point, but I think that if you know your friends and family and how responsible (or not) each is, this shouldn’t be a problem.

But enough about me. What else can you do to reduce your stress at this time of year?

One thing is make sure you aren’t overeating. Avoiding comfort eating can be a real struggle. According to Baylor College of Medicine’s Dr. Sreedhar Mandayam in an article at https://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-11-overeating-holidays-bad-kidneys.html,

“For people with kidney disease, even eating normal amounts of food puts stress on their kidneys. If you consume large amounts of carbohydrates, protein or fat the stress on an overworked, half functioning kidney will get even worse and can accelerate your kidney dysfunction.”

How about exercising? This is when I get on the exercise bike and watch a good movie. Why? The Mayo Clinic at  https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/exercise-and-stress/art-20044469 explains far better than I could:

Exercise increases your overall health and your sense of well-being, which puts more pep in your step every day. But exercise also has some direct stress-busting benefits.

• It pumps up your endorphins. Physical activity helps bump up the production of your brain’s feel-good neurotransmitters, called endorphins. Although this function is often referred to as a runner’s high, a rousing game of tennis or a nature hike also can contribute to this same feeling.
• It’s meditation in motion. After a fast-paced game of racquetball or several laps in the pool, you’ll often find that you’ve forgotten the day’s irritations and concentrated only on your body’s movements.

As you begin to regularly shed your daily tensions through movement and physical activity, you may find that this focus on a single task, and the resulting energy and optimism, can help you remain calm and clear in everything you do.

• It improves your mood. Regular exercise can increase self-confidence, it can relax you, and it can lower the symptoms associated with mild depression and anxiety. Exercise can also improve your sleep, which is often disrupted by stress, depression and anxiety. All of these exercise benefits can ease your stress levels and give you a sense of command over your body and your life.

 

Of course, you could give yourself permission to curl up with a good book for half an hour or so. You might like Portal in Time or Sort of Dark Places for sheer escapism or any of the SlowItDownCKD series (including What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease) for edifying yourself. Oh, the shameless self-promotion here! All are available on Amazon although,personally, if I’m stressed, I want pure escapism.

 

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Kidney Transplant: Cure or Treatment?

I’ve already mentioned that there’s an active network of kidney disease awareness advocates… and that we find each other. I met Steve at a think tank last spring. I wasn’t really sure why I’d been invited, but as soon as he and his wife started talking, I knew why they were.

I hesitated to ask Steve to guest blog since, at the time, I was only writing about Chronic Kidney Disease. Since then, readers have asked me to write about all sorts of topics dealing with the kidneys, not just CKD. So I did. Steve and his thoughts on being a transplant fit right in to this new agenda. When I did ask him to guest blog, I received a return response that was one of the most gracious acceptances… and they’ve all been gracious. I’ll turn the blog over to Steve Winfree now.

The other day I was speaking with some friends and one made mention to me how incredibly lucky I was. I received a new kidney from my wife, Heather, just last year and I was feeling as if I were on top of the world. Given that fact, I had to agree with him, but I inquired further to find out what he meant. He responded that it must be such a relief to be cured and to no longer have to worry about kidney issues, dialysis, and the mess that comes with it.

That really got me thinking about what a kidney transplant actually means outside of the wonderful opportunity for a second chance at a more normal life. It also reminded me that there is a knowledge gap between those close to kidney failure and those who are not.

It is essential that, as a kidney transplant recipient, I clarify the difference between a cure and a treatment. Chronic Kidney Disease is a disease that progresses over time. This is due to the fact that CKD is a disease in which your body attacks your kidneys, or is a genetic disorder (PKD), or is a result of a primary disease such as diabetes and/or high blood pressure. The common factor among the types of kidney disease is that an outside source, not the kidney itself, is the reason for the issues.

This is why receiving a new kidney is a treatment and not a cure. A genetic disorder is still active in your body even when the new kidney is placed. Diabetes and high blood pressure can still be prevalent even with a new kidney, thus causing the implanted kidney to be affected in the same way as the old one. It is due to these reasons that a transplant is a treatment and not a cure. My new kidney has allowed my body to filter out the toxins much more easily, freed me from dialysis, and granted me the ability to get around easier since my arthritis was derived from my kidney disease.

The truth is that while this second opportunity at a much better life is an enormous blessing, the reality is that there is a good chance I will need another transplant one day. The reason is that the cause of my initial kidney failure is still within my body and attacking the new kidney. That is in addition to another main reason that a new kidney is not a final cure: organ rejection.

A new kidney is looked at as a foreign object by your body. Our bodies are designed to keep the body in balance and when something out of the ordinary, such as a virus invading, it attacks to bring balance back. The same is applied to a kidney that is transplanted from another source. Your body sees it as a foreign object and attacks it. That is why we must take immunosuppressant drugs to trick our bodies into not realizing there is a foreign organ inside.

With all of this being said about my new transplant being a treatment and not a cure, I want to mention how my life has changed forever. At the age of 33, I feel better right now than I have since I was a young teenager. My entire adult life has been spent in hospitals and doctors’ offices. I am now free to use my time to travel, enjoy life, and be the foster parent that I have always wanted to be.

A big part of receiving a kidney transplant is the medicine that is involved. The medicine you have to take every day is known as an immunosuppressant, or anti-rejection. While this is a medicine that you must take for the rest of your life, there are steps you can take to ensure that you are able to receive the medicine in an affordable manner. Kidney transplant patients qualify for Medicare. Medicare helps take care of a lot of the costs associated with taking these medications, but not all of it. The best advice I can give you in regards to your medications is to educate yourself on Medicare, MediGap, manufacturer coupons, and be in a close relationship with your transplant team’s social worker. It can be overwhelming at times, but I promise you that there are resources out there to help you!

I am extremely lucky in the fact that my wife, Heather, donated her kidney to me. While this is a treatment, it is the most remarkable and life changing treatment I have ever been blessed to receive! While all kidney disease patients would love to be cured, we understand that will never be the case, but that does not mean our lives cannot be just as remarkable and enjoyable with our treatments.

While we all watched our different renal diets during the weekend we were together, I never once saw Steve or Heather bemoan their new regiment with the transplanted kidney. While they talked about the exorbitant cost of the medications, they were accepting. One other thing I noticed about this delightful couple is that they were grateful every minutes of the time we spent together. I’m hoping Steve’s transplant lasts him as long as is medically feasible.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Shining a Light on 1in9

Last week, I began my blog post by mentioning that kidney disease awareness advocates have a habit of finding each other. This time, we had a little help.  I transferred to a new nephrologist because he was so much closer to my house. We spent some time getting to know each other as people new to each other do. Then he told me about another patient of his who is also working on spreading awareness, but via a documentary. Raymond, a transplant recipient that you’ll meet in a moment, and his brother who is also his donor, are both veterans. It made sense to me when his wife and partner on their documentary, Analyn Scott, suggested I post her guest blog about their project today since Veterans’ Day which was yesterday. Readers, meet Analyn; Analyn, meet the readers of the blog.

By now it shouldn’t surprise me that as I’m out and about I’m constantly meeting more and more people with a connection to kidney disease. That was not the case 21 years ago, or even four years ago for that matter. What changed? The opening of my eyes to statistics I was previously unaware of, and frankly I found to be quite shocking and unacceptable. I’ll get to those stats a little later.

21 years ago this month I met my now husband, Raymond Scott, on a blind date. A year out of the Army, here was this 29 year old handsome, kind, Southern gentlemen that swept me off my feet. Little did either of us know that three months later his kidneys would unexpectedly fail and that our journey would lead us to where we are today.

Like many others, although Raymond ‘crashed’ into dialysis, his previous medical records revealed that he had Kidney Disease, but he was not properly made aware of his status or what he could do to improve it. So our journey with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) began together with Raymond finding out he had End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) and needing to start on dialysis right away.

Throughout the past 20, going on 21 years, Raymond has been on both peritoneal dialysis and in-center hemodialysis, had a kidney transplant that lasted for five years, and for the past five years has his hemodialysis treatments administered by me five days a week from the comforts of our home. With that, we’ve also had many twists and turns with Raymond’s health that often go along with ESRD. But, despite our own experiences, it wasn’t until we were invited as guests to attend the National Kidney Foundation’s Dancing With The Stars Arizona 2015 Gala that our eyes would start to be opened to the staggering statistics surrounding Kidney Disease.

As we enjoyed the lively and energetic dance performances I turned to Raymond and teasingly said, “Hey, that could be you dancing next year.” My eyes got big and my giggles stopped, and before I could get the words out of my mouth, Raymond already knew that look on my face very well and anticipated my next words, “Wait, why not you? You can do this!.”

Sure enough, Raymond was the first celebrity star dancer who was an active dialysis patient at the National Kidney Foundation’s 10th Annual Dancing With the Stars Arizona Gala on February 20th, 2016…..18 years to the exact day that his kidneys failed! He and his dance partner and instructor, Brianna Santiago, spent six months of grueling practices preparing for their energetic performance to Pharrell William’s song Happy, demonstrating the improved quality of life home dialysis can provide, and that dialysis does not have to be a death sentence.

As we picked up the torch of advocacy, we were led to start filming a documentary and create a non-profit organization to create hope and change the trajectory of kidney disease. As I was brainstorming with a dear friend about potential names for the organization, she said, “Wait, go back to that statistic you mentioned: 26 Million Americans, 1 in 9 adults have Kidney Disease….that’s it…..1in9.” That and meeting our incredible videographer was how 1in9 was birthed!

You may have guessed it, but 1 in 9 American adults having Kidney Disease was one of those stats that caught us off guard. And hearing that 90% of those with CKD weren’t aware was totally unacceptable to us. Diabetes is the leading cause of Kidney Disease, and high blood pressure….which took Raymond’s kidneys….is second. Kidney disease is the ninth leading cause of death in the U.S. and kills more people than breast cancer or prostate cancer. Surprising, right? It sure was to us, and we figured if this was news to us after all these years of living with it, then the general population must really be in the dark.

Our vision for 1in9 is to save millions of lives globally through awareness, prevention, and expedited research and development of regenerative medicine treatments and solutions. Last year our family headed out across country on an RV tour to raise awareness and film, while keeping up Raymond’s dialysis treatments five days a week on the RV. We met some incredible people near and far that continue to inspire us to keep pushing the wheels of change. Like our friends at…..

University of Arizona http://deptmedicine.arizona.edu/news/2017/1in9-kidney-challenge-founders-visit-ua-nephrology-faculty-researchers

Washington University https://nephrology.wustl.edu/1in9-kidney-awareness-documentary-visits-division-nephrology/

The Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Washington DC https://www.washingtondc.va.gov/features/Living_Well_with_Kidney_Disease.asp

And our visit to UCSF with Dr. Shuvo Roy, co-Director of The Kidney Project, where we were able to hold the 3D printed bio-artificial kidney prototype in our own hands! Friends, if you haven’t already heard, change is not only on the way, it’s here!

We are still filming our documentary, releasing our 1in9 Compilation Book next March, and excited about other impactful programs we are launching that will help us bring Kidney Disease out of the public shadows of silence and misunderstanding and confront it head on with solutions.

To learn more and link arms to help keep the torch illuminating bright on our life saving mission please visit, follow, and/or contact us at: www.1in9kidneychallenge.com 
www.facebook.com/1in9kidneychallenge/ 1in9kidneychallenge@gmail.com

Analyn and Raymond have asked me to contribute a chapter to their book. I will be delighted to do so. As a Chronic Kidney Disease awareness advocate, I can’t begin to tell you how much pleasure I have at meeting more and more people with the same mission in life. We get to help each other spread awareness.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Yet Another One

Chronic Kidney Disease awareness advocates have a tendency to hang out together online. One who has become a good buddy and happens to live in Hawaii (Now you see why we’re online buddies.), and I were going back and forth about how it’s important to be what I call a lifelong learner. To put it another way, someone who investigates that about which they don’t know. The timing was good.

A reader soon started communicating with me about tuberous sclerosis complex (TS). I was polite. I was patient. And I had no clue what this had to do with kidney disease, although the word “tuberous” caught my eye. By the way, Dictionary.com at https://www.dictionary.com defines tuberous as “characterized by the presence of rounded or wartlike prominences or tubers.” So I did what any curious, intelligent lifelong learner would do. I asked… and the response was an eye opener.

What she, the reader, sent me led to my going back to my old friend The National Institutes of Health’s U.S. National Library of Medicine. This definition is from their website at https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/tuberous-sclerosis-complex,

“Tuberous sclerosis complex is a genetic disorder characterized by the growth of numerous noncancerous (benign) tumors in many parts of the body. These tumors can occur in the skin, brain, kidneys, and other organs, in some cases leading to significant health problems.”

So, that’s the connection to kidney disease: tumor growth on the kidney… and, according to this definition, it’s genetic. It wasn’t mentioned there, but I remember thinking that it’s also a rare disease.

I thought I’d hop over to National Organization for Rare Diseases at https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/tuberous-sclerosis/ for more information, just in case it really was a rare disease. It’s a good thing I did because as it turned out, this is not only a genetic disease, but one that can also be caused by mutation:

“In many instances, an alteration causing tuberous sclerosis occurs as a new (sporadic or de novo) mutation, which means that the gene alteration has occurred at the time of the formation of the egg or sperm for that child only, and no other family member will be affected. The disorder is not inherited from or ‘carried’ by a healthy parent. However, such alterations can be passed on through dominant inheritance (where a trait is transmitted from either an affected mother or father to their child).”

I needed to know more so I poked around looking for the symptoms. My first stop was the ever reliable Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tuberous-sclerosis/symptoms-causes/syc-20365969 :

“Although the signs and symptoms are unique for each person with , they can include:

• Skin abnormalities. Most people with tuberous sclerosis have patches of light-colored skin, or they may develop small, harmless areas of thickened, smooth skin or reddish bumps under or around the nails. Facial growths that begin in childhood and resemble acne also are common.
• Seizures. Growths in the brain may be associated with seizures, which can be the first symptom of tuberous sclerosis. In small children, a common type of seizure called infantile spasm shows up as repetitive spasms of the head and legs.
• Cognitive disabilities. Tuberous sclerosis can be associated with developmental delays and sometimes intellectual disability or learning disabilities. Mental health disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), also can occur.
• Behavioral problems. Common behavioral problems may include hyperactivity, self-injury or aggression, or issues with social and emotional adjustment.
• Kidney problems. Most people with tuberous sclerosis develop noncancerous growths on their kidneys, and they may develop more growths as they age.
• Heart issues. Growths in the heart, if present, are usually largest at birth and shrink as the child gets older.
• Lung problems. Growths that develop in the lungs may cause coughing or shortness of breath, especially with physical activity or exercise. These benign lung tumors occur more often in women than in men.
• Eye abnormalities. Growths can appear as white patches on the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye (retina). These noncancerous growths don’t always interfere with vision.”

Nope, not enough yet. Even though growths on the kidneys were mentioned, I wanted to know about diagnosing this rare disease. This time I turned to Healthline (Yes, the same Healthline that twice deemed this blog one of the top six kidney blogs.) at https://www.healthline.com/health/tuberous-sclerosis#diagnosis . This is what I found there:

“TS is diagnosed by genetic testing or a series of tests that includes:

an MRI of the brain

a CT scan of the head

an electrocardiogram

an echocardiogram

a kidney ultrasound

an eye exam

looking at your skin under an Wood’s lamp, which emits ultraviolet light”

But what about a cure or treatment? Is there any? According to MedicineNet at https://www.medicinenet.com/tuberous_sclerosis_complex_tsc/article.htm#how_is_tsc_treated ,

“There is no cure for TSC, although treatment is available for a number of the symptoms. Antiepileptic drugs may be used to control seizures. Vigabatrin is a particularly useful medication in TSC, and has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for treatment of infantile spasms in TSC, although it has significant side effects. The FDA has approved the drug everolimus (Afinitor®) to treat subependymal giant cell astrocytomas (SEGA brain tumors) and angiomyolipoma kidney tumors. Specific medications may be prescribed for behavior problems. Intervention programs including special schooling and occupational therapy may benefit individuals with special needs and developmental issues. Surgery may be needed in case of complications connected to tubers, SEN or SEGA, as well as in risk of hemorrhage from kidney tumors. Respiratory insufficiency due to LAM can be treated with supplemental oxygen therapy or lung transplantation if severe.”

I find myself flabbergasted that, yet again, there is so much to learn for this particular lifelong learner. Wait, you should also know there is an association for those with the disease. It’s the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance. The following link is for the page that explains how this disease affects the kidneys: https://www.tsalliance.org/about-tsc/signs-and-symptoms-of-tsc/kidneys/. Should you be newly diagnosed with this disease or know someone who has been, that’s where you find easily understood information and support. You can also click on to their home page if you want to know how it affects other parts of the body.

That is plenty to absorb for one day.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Where Did This All Come From?

Some people think SlowItDownCKD is a business; it’s not. Some think it’s a profit maker; it’s not. So, what is it you ask? It’s a vehicle for spreading awareness of Chronic Kidney Disease and whatever goes along with the disease. Why do I do it? Because I had no idea what it was, nor how I might have prevented the disease, nor how to deal with it effectively once I was diagnosed.

At that time I was a college instructor. My favorite course to teach was Research Writing. I was also a writer with an Academic Certificate in Creative Non-Fiction and a bunch of publications under my belt. It occurred to me that I couldn’t be the only one who had no clue what this new-to-me disease was and how to handle living with it. I knew how to research and I knew how to write, so why not share what I learned?

I wasn’t sure of what had to be done to share or how to do it. I learned by trial and error. People were so kind in teaching me, pointing out what might work better, even suggesting others that might be interested in what I was doing. I love people.

First came the books. I’d written quite a few how to(s), study guides, articles, and literary guides so the writing was not new to me. I asked for suggestions as to what to do with my writing and that’s when I learned about unscrupulous, price gouging vanity publishers. I’m still paying for that mistake with my first book What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, but it was a learning experience.

You already know the blog was born of necessity when an Indian doctor explained to me that he wanted his new patients to read What Is It and How Did I Early It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, but they couldn’t even afford the bus fare to the clinic. That’s when I got the bright idea of blogging a chapter a week so he could translate and print the blog post, and then the patients that did make it to the clinic could bring the blog back to their villages for others to read.

It would work! But first I had to teach myself how to blog. I made some boo-boos and lost a bunch of blogs until I got it figured out. So why do I keep blogging? There always seems to be more to share about CKD. Each week, I wonder what I’ll write… and the ideas keep coming.

Then my New York daughter, Nima, started teaching me about social media. What???? You could post whatever you wanted to? And Facebook wasn’t the only way to reach the public at large? Hello LinkedIn. A friend who is a professional photographer asked me why I wasn’t using my fun photography habit to promote awareness. What??? You could do that? Hello Instagram. My step-daughters love Pinterest. That got me to thinking…. Then someone I met at a conference casually mentioned she offers Twitter workshops. What kind of workshops? She showed me how to use Twitter to raise CKD awareness.

When I was diagnosed back in 2008, there weren’t that many reader friendly books on anything having to do with CKD. Since then, more and more books on the subject have been published. I’m laughing along with you, but I don’t mean just SlowItDownCKD 2011, SlowItDownCKD 2012 (These two were The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1, until I realized how unwieldy both the book and the title were – another learning experience), SlowItDownCKD 2013, SlowItDownCKD 2014 (These two were formerly The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2), SlowItDownCKD 2015, SlowItDownCKD 2016, and SlowItDownCKD 2017. By the way, I’m already working on SlowItDownCKD 2018. Each book contains the blogs for that year. 

Have you read the guest blogs or book review blogs to get a taste of what’s available now? Last week, Suzanne Ruff guest blogged. She wrote The Reluctant Donor, which I just wrote a review for on Amazon. Her guest blog explains what her book is about. Don’t forget Dr. Mandip S. Kang’s book, The Doctor’s Kidney Diets which also contains so much non-dietary information that we as CKD patients need to know. Another very helpful book is Drs. Raymond R. Townsend and Debbie L. Cohen’s 100 Questions & Answers About Kidney Disease and Hypertension. Neuropharmacologist Dr. Walter Hunt wrote Kidney Disease: A Guide for Living. Renal Dietitian Nina Kolbe wrote from her perspective: 10 Step Diet & Lifestyle Plan for Healthier Kidneys. Dr. Mackenzie Walser wrote Coping with Kidney Disease: A 12 – Step Treatment Program to Help You Avoid Dialysis. I also just wrote an Amazon review for Who Lives, Who Dies With Kidney Disease by Drs. Mohammad Akmal and Vasundhara Raghavan.

While I may or may not agree with all or part of the information in these books, they have either been mentioned, reviewed, or guest blogged on SlowItDownCKD because I want you to be aware of whatever help may be available to you.

That, of course, brings us to the Facebook support groups. I miss my New York daughter and she misses me, so we sometimes have coffee together separately. She has a cup of coffee and I do at the same time. It’s not like being together in person, but it’s something. You can find support the same way via Facebook. Since I’m both running out of room and have periodically reviewed these groups, I’m just going to list a few. You can use the search bar at the top of your Facebook page for others.

Kidney Disease, Dialysis, and Transplant

The Transplant Community Outreach

P2P

Kidney Disease Ideas and Diets1

People on Dialysis

Chronic Kidney Disease in India

Friends Sharing Positive Chronic Kidney Disease

Chronic Kidney Disease Awareness

CKD (Kidney Failure) Support Group International

Kidney Warriors Foundation

Kidney Disease is not a Joke

Kidney Disease Diet Ideas and Help

Sharing your Kidney Journey

Mani Trust

Dialysis & Kidney Disease

Kidneys and Vets

Women’s Renal Failure

I Hate Dialysis

Mark’s Private Kidney Disease Group

UK Kidney Support

Wrap Up Warm for Kidney Disease

Stage 3 ‘n 4 Kidneybeaners Gathering Place

 

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

 

 

The Dynamic Duo

Sorry Batman, not yours. I’m writing about Chronic Kidney Disease and diabetes. For a decade, I’ve been told diabetes is the number one cause of CKD. Got it… and (as you know) CKD. Then I learned that CKD can cause diabetes. Ummm, okay, I guess that sort of makes sense. And then, oh my, I developed diabetes. But how? I’d never questioned how that worked before, but I certainly did now.

Let’s go back to the beginning here. First of all, what is diabetes? I included this information in SlowItDownCKD 2013:

“According to MedicalNewsToday at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/diabetes:

‘Diabetes, often referred to by doctors as diabetes mellitus, describes a group of metabolic diseases in which the person has high blood glucose (blood sugar), either because insulin production is inadequate, or because the body’s cells do not respond properly to insulin, or both. Patients with high blood sugar will typically experience polyuria (frequent urination), they will become increasingly thirsty (polydipsia) and hungry (polyphagia).’”

Guilty on all three counts as far as symptoms. It gets worse. I uncovered this fact in SlowItDownCKD 2014:

“According to Diabetes.co.uk at https://www.diabetes.co.uk/how-does-diabetes-affect-the-body.html,

‘The kidneys are another organ that is at particular risk of damage as a result of diabetes and the risk is again increased by poorly controlled diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol.’”

This is getting more and more complicated. But again, how is diabetes damaging my kidneys?

It seemed to me that I had just posted a fact about this on SlowItDownCKD’s Facebook page, so I checked. Yep, I did on September 7^th.

“Did you know that high glucose levels can make your red blood cells stiffen? This hinders your blood circulation.”

And this affects the kidneys how? Let’s think about this a minute. Way back when I wrote What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, I included this information:

“A renal artery carries the blood, waste and water to the kidneys while a renal vein carries the filtered and sieved waste from the kidneys.”

The American Society of Hematology at http://www.hematology.org/Patients/Basics/ tells us there are four parts of the blood:

1. Red blood cells
2. White blood cells
3. Plasma
4. Platelets

Hmmm, so red blood cells compose one quarter of your blood and high glucose can make them stiffen. To me, that means a quarter of your blood will be working against you.  Not what we need… especially when we’re already dealing with Chronic Kidney Disease.

Back to my original question (again): How do high glucose levels affect the kidneys?

Thank you to the National Kidney Foundation at https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/Diabetes-and-Kidney-Disease-Stages1-4 for exactly the answer I was looking for:

• Blood vessels inside your kidneys. The filtering units of the kidney are filled with tiny blood vessels. Over time, high sugar levels in the blood can cause these vessels to become narrow and clogged. Without enough blood, the kidneys become damaged and albumin (a type of protein) passes through these filters and ends up in the urine where it should not be.
• Nerves in your body. Diabetes can also cause damage to the nerves in your body. Nerves carry messages between your brain and all other parts of your body, including your bladder. They let your brain know when your bladder is full. But if the nerves of the bladder are damaged, you may not be able to feel when your bladder is full. The pressure from a full bladder can damage your kidneys.
• Urinary tract. If urine stays in your bladder for a long time, you may get a urinary tract infection. This is because of bacteria. Bacteria are tiny organisms like germs that can cause disease. They grow rapidly in urine with a high sugar level. Most often these infections affect the bladder, but they can sometimes spread to the kidneys.

I would say I’m heart… uh, kidney…broken about this development, but the truth is I’m not. I don’t like it; I don’t want it, but I can do something about it. I’d already cut out complex carbs and sugar laden foods in an abortive attempt to lose weight for my health. Well, maybe my daughter’s wedding on October 6^th had something to do with that decision, too.

The point is, I’ve started. I’m aware of the carbohydrates in food and I’m learning how to control my intake of them… just as I’m aware that I have to break in the shoes for the wedding. Something new has to be gotten used to. I’ve had a head start.

Why the emphasis on carbs, you ask. I turned to my old favorite The National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases at https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/diabetes/overview/diet-eating-physical-activity/carbohydrate-counting  for help:

“When you eat foods containing carbohydrates, your digestive system breaks down the sugars and starches into glucose. Glucose is one of the simplest forms of sugar. Glucose then enters your bloodstream from your digestive tract and raises your blood glucose levels. The hormone insulin, which comes from the pancreas or from insulin shots, helps cells throughout your body absorb glucose and use it for energy. Once glucose moves out of the blood into cells, your blood glucose levels go back down.”

If you’ve got diabetes, your body either is not producing enough insulin or not interacting well with the insulin it is producing. Measuring my blood sugar levels when I awaken in the morning has shown me that when I’m sleeping – when I cannot help my blood sugar levels come down by eating protein or exercising, even in my dreams – is when I have the highest blood sugar. During the day I can keep it under control.

And that’s where my medication comes in. The usual – Metformin – can cause nausea, which I deal with more often than not, so that was out. However, a new medication on the market just might do the trick. It’s only been a few days, but I do notice my blood sugar upon waking is getting lower each day. This medication is not a panacea. I still have to be careful with my food, exercise daily, and sometimes counteract a high carb food with a protein. I’m not there yet, but I’m learning.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

So That’s How It’s Done

Readers have asked me repeatedly how foundations to raise awareness of kidney disease are started. You know my story: I developed Chronic Kidney Disease, didn’t understand what my nephrologist was saying so researched the disease, then decided to share my research with others who needs plain talk or reader friendly explanations. Hello, books, the blog, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, LinkedIn, and my website. But I’m not a foundation; I’m just me doing what I can.

Back to the original question: How do foundations begin? Let’s keep in mind that we’re not talking about the biggies like the National Kidney Foundation here.

Well, remember the AAKP Conference back in June that I keep referring to? You meet a lot of people there. One fellow I met is Scott Burton who started his own kidney awareness foundation. I put the question to him. Ready? Here’s his answer.

How do you sum up 36 years of a constant back and forth struggle? Of a lifetime searching for a reason as hope fades a little more each day? How do you not get sick on this roller coaster called life? Simple answer, you don’t have a choice, so you push forward and try to find some positive in the negative, some hope in the hopeless and, ultimately, just try to live each day a little better than the last and make a positive impact. See, this isn’t a story with a fairytale happy ending, but most stories worth reading (or watching), don’t have fairytale endings; rather, they are stories that are relatable and sometimes left open ended.

This isn’t a guest blog about me or my battle, but rather one introducing the positive that has come from the negatives. That positive comes in the form of The Forever is Tomorrow Foundation which pulls from my background in marketing and video production. It just made sense to try to raise awareness and shed some light on kidney disease in the best way I know how: with real people telling real stories about real experiences in a casual and comfortable format.

That began the journey to today, a journey that began on March 3^rd, 2016, when The Forever is Tomorrow Foundation was officially launched. The foundation is committed to raising awareness and shedding light on kidney disease through the creation of video content distributed via the web and social media. With many hopes and plans for the future, we are pushing forward as time and funds are available to create new content and keep things moving.

What I envisioned when setting out and establishing The Forever is Tomorrow Foundation was a resource of media content to both shed light on kidney disease to the general public  – which usually doesn’t give their kidneys a second thought – as well as creating a place for patients to find a little bit of comfort with their own battles. By telling patients’ stories, highlighting struggles and accomplishments, and also highlighting research in the field, we can create a place of inspiration and hope. While we have several video series at various stages of development in the works, our primary focus right now is ramping up our mini-documentary web series as funding allows.

We launched with two Public Service Announcements that went live in May of 2016. These two were centered around the National Kidney Foundation’s statistic, “13 people die every day waiting for a kidney transplant,” with a combined viewership of just over 30,000 views on Facebook & YouTube.

In March of 2017, we launched the first episode of “This is Kidney Disease… This is Life,” which is a web mini-documentary series of patients telling their stories in their own words. To date, four episodes of “This is Kidney Disease… This is Life” have been posted online, with just under 50,000 views spread across Facebook and YouTube.

In the coming months, we will also be releasing the first three episodes of a companion to the patient series, telling living donor stories with more episodes of “This is Kidney Disease… This is Life” to follow later this year. Additionally, we released the first video of what will grow to a regular series highlighting research focused on University of California, San Francisco, & The Kidney Project.

That’s the basic plan and history of The Forever is Tomorrow Foundation, with lots of projects in the works and plans to continue to grow. Everything comes down to funding and continuing to grow our network. We are constantly looking for new patients to highlight in our videos, and building a database of contact info for future episodes. To view our videos and learn more about the organization, follow us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/foreveristomorrowfoundation) & subscribe on YouTube (www.youtube.com/c/TheForeverisTomorrowFoundation).

Thank you, Scott, for explaining the inside workings of starting a foundation to raise awareness for kidney disease. Here’s hoping we get a bunch of readers commenting to tell us they borrowed from your structure to begin such foundations of their own and/or are interested in sharing their stories with  you. Note: The Facebook page has some of the most interesting information on kidney innovations that I’ve read about. Take a look for yourself.

On another note, KidneyX is looking for our input. This is from the email they sent me:

“We seek your feedback on how the KidneyX project can best spur innovation in preventing, diagnosing, and/or treating kidney diseases. While we encourage all relevant comments, we are interested particularly in responses to the following questions. You may respond to some or all of the questions:

1. What unmet needs – including those related to product development—should KidneyX prize competitions focus on? If you have ideas for more than one topic area/issue, how would you rank them in order of importance? If you are a person living with a kidney disease, what makes these topic areas for product development important?
2. What assistance or services might HHS and ASN offer to KidneyX prize winners that would encourage the greatest participation from a broad range of innovators?
3. In what ways might HHS and ASN, through KidneyX, effectively encourage collaboration or cooperation between participants/prize winners while respecting their intellectual property rights?
4. Particularly for those interested in participating in a KidneyX prize competition but unfamiliar with kidney functions and diseases, what information would you find it most useful for HHS and ASN to share publicly?”

You can submit your comments using the title “KidneyX Project Comment” by their September 14 deadline at:

E-Mail: please send responses to KidneyX@hhs.gov.

Mail: please send mail to
KidneyX c/o Ross Bowling
200 Independence Avenue SW, Room 624D
Washington, D.C., 20201

You don’t need to be a kidney patient to respond; you can also be an innovator.

This is, without a doubt, the most businessish (Love the writer’s license to initiate new words, don’t you?) blog I have posted to date. I hope it was both helpful and interesting to you.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Cindy Tells All

On June 11th of this year, I wrote about Polycystic Kidney Disease after having met Cindy Guentert-Baldo at a kidney event. She has a type of kidney disease that I had no clue about until she started explaining it. What she had to say caught my attention, so I asked her if she would be willing to guest blog. I knew she had a family and is both a lettering artist and YouTube creator. That’s a lot of busy, especially if you’re dealing with a chronic illness. Luckily for us, she was able to work a guest blog into her busy schedule.

*****

In some ways, I live the typical middle class American mom life. I have a middle schooler and a high schooler. I work from home, my husband works a 9-5 in an office. The kids go to school, do their homework, go to activities. I have coffee dates with friends and dinner out with family, we go to the movies, we stay home and do yard work. Same routine, same rhythm as so many other families we know.

This picture doesn’t tell the whole story: I have polycystic kidney disease. I am currently in Stage 4, with my eGFR hovering around 25. My kidneys, at last measurement, were 27 and 25 cm in length.

Part of my daily rhythm is taking 10 different medications to control my blood pressure, manage other symptoms of being in Stage 4 of kidney disease and to help with my pain levels. Another part is having to take breaks when my energy flags or my pain levels get high enough to make sitting at a desk impossible. My kids have learned to read my body language so they know when Mom’s having a bad pain day. They’ve also learned to not hug me around my stomach, as my kidneys are so large that a loving hug could send me to bed for a few days.

I’ve burst a cyst making my bed, tying my shoe, twisting at the waist. I currently have a cyst the size of a healthy kidney underneath my left ribs that is a constant reminder that I am sick.

Aside from the physical problems that come with ADPKD (Let me help Cindy out here with a definition from emedicine at https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/244907-overview: “Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD) is a multisystemic and progressive disorder characterized by cyst formation and enlargement in the kidney … and other organs (eg, liver, pancreas, spleen). Up to 50% of patients with ADPKD require renal replacement therapy by 60 years of age.”), there is also the emotional baggage I carry.

This disease is genetic – I have multiple family members in different stages. In some ways, I am grateful to have people to talk to who understand without my having to explain. On a recent vacation my sister (who is in Stage 5) and I lay next to each other and just let out our frustrations and difficulties, knowing we had someone listening who understood. Our grandmother is in her 15th year with her transplant – she has impressed upon us how crucial it is to be informed about the disease in general and our health specifically.

I carry a lot of emotional, painful baggage due to this disease. Our father passed away from a brain stem aneurysm at age 40, brought on due to high blood pressure and PKD. My sister and I were diagnosed shortly afterwards. These days, as I approach 40, I live with a certain amount of terror. What if I die and leave my kids the way my dad left me? I’m aware of how unreasonable of a fear that is – my father died because he was unable to get health insurance and, thus, was unable to care for himself as his kidney disease progressed. I have learned from that.

That doesn’t change the deep fear inside me.

I also live with the guilt that I may have passed this disease to one or both of my children. Was I selfish becoming a parent knowing the kids themselves could wind up with PKD? I was healthy when I had them. I had no idea what I would be feeling like as my kidneys grew and began to fail. Make no mistake; I adore my children, and the world is a better place with them in it. But that doesn’t make the guilt go away.

I worry about having access to healthcare. I worry about dialysis with kids still in school. I worry about something happening to me the way it did to my dad. I worry about something happening to my sister the way it did to our dad. I struggle with my body image as my kidneys grow and I look more and more pregnant. I fight with my expectations of what I think my body should be able to do, and what I am actually able to do. I fight against the idea that I am a sick person.

Despite ALL of this, I love my life. I love my family. I love my friends. I live a mundane, repetitive, fantastic, beautiful life of a mom, a wife, a sister, a friend, an artist, a woman.

I am not PKD. I am a person with PKD…

And I am so much more.

*****

I have to admire Cindy for her honesty here. She would be having these feelings whether or not she shared them with us, but the fact that she did may just make it easier for other PKD patients to speak about their own fears.

By the way, The American Kidney Fund’s next webinar, Advocating for a rare disease, is on Thursday, July 26, 2018 from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. EDT. The speakers will be Angeles Herrera, Holly Bode, You can register at https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/7986767093922676227.

In other news, the SlowItDownCKD book series now includes SlowItDownCKD 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, all available from Amazon.com and B & N.com. I had contemplated changing the title of What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease to SlowItDownCKD 2010 but rejected the idea. I like that title; don’t you? Of course, expect SlowItDownCKD 2018 early next year. These books were written for those of you who have requested the blogs in print form for those family members and friends who are either not computer savvy or don’t have easy access to a computer. It’s my pleasure to comply with that request. Oh, I still have one desk copy each of the retired The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Parts 1 & 2 if you’ve not received a free book from me before and would like one of them. Just respond with a comment so I know you were the first to ask.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Help When You Need It

One of the many people I met at the AAKP Conference who opened my eyes to things I’d never even though of before is Samantha Siegner from the Chronic Disease Coalition. We hit it off right away and I felt comfortable exposing my ignorance to her. Once she explained what the coalition does, I wanted all my readers to know about it. Happily for us, Samatha agreed to write a guest blog for us.

*****

Nearly half of all adults in the United States have one or more chronic health conditions, and the number continues to climb. By 2020, it is projected that over 157 million Americans will battle a chronic disease. While some chronic conditions can be prevented, others are inherited, or may develop as a result of numerous factors. Despite the prevalence of chronic disease, few organizations are specifically dedicated to addressing the needs of patients who battle all types of chronic conditions rather than a single disease.

The Chronic Disease Coalition (CDC) is national nonprofit organization that represents people battling a wide range of chronic conditions, including kidney disease, diabetes, arthritis, multiple sclerosis and more. As patients dealing with kidney disease or other chronic conditions know, it can be difficult to work, attend school or even get adequate health insurance coverage. Our organization works to not only raise awareness and educate the public about chronic conditions, but also to advocate for patients who need better access to care. Our mission is focused on exposing and addressing discriminatory practices and policies that are preventing patients from accessing necessary, often lifesaving care.

Discrimination based on a person having a chronic disease comes in various forms, but we most frequently see it occur in the school, workplace and with health insurance plans.

1. School: For those looking to complete high school or even college, it can be difficult to regularly attend class or have the energy to complete assignments. For kidney patients, dialysis poses difficulty attending class, as you may be required to dialyze for several hours multiple times a week. It is important to educate yourself on the services offered by the school to ensure that you are receiving reasonable accommodation that support your effort to pursue education.

Our organization works with people to ensure that they are being treated fairly in the school system, read more in one patient’s story here.

2. Workplace: Many people with chronic conditions may frequently visit the doctor’s office for treatment, response to a flare up or check-ups to ensure that their condition is being managed properly – these actions can require additional time off work. While it is not legal for an employer to ask about your medical history, some patients may disclose it. This can lead to a greater understanding and development of a process for how you miss work, but for others, it may lead to losing their job or being demoted.

The CDC helps patients by supporting legislation that protects the privacy of employee’s medical history and ensures that businesses and corporations cannot discriminate based on their health status. Additionally, we ensure that patients are educated on their rights within the workplace.

3. Insurance: Unfortunately, insurance discrimination is all too common. Insurers institute a variety of practices to increase their bottom line at the expense of the patients, without consideration for the long-term health consequences. Some of the most common practices include, step-therapy or fail-first, lengthy prior authorization approval times, nonmedical switching and bans on charitable premium and copay assistance, which is a common way for insurers to target kidney patients.

Right now, insurers across the nation are targeting chronic disease patients who rely on charitable premium assistance to help afford the cost of their health care. By utilizing a loophole within a 2014 guideline issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, insurers are denying premium and copay payments made by charities, like the American Kidney Fund, on behalf of patients. As a result, patients are forced off their current health plan and left to find other options. This is a commonly used tactic to force patients off of private health plans and onto public plans, because the insurer doesn’t want to cover chronic disease patients that require expensive, regular treatment, like dialysis. While kidney patients are eligible for Medicare before the age of 65, a public plan may not meet their needs or cover services that can help a patient become eligible for a transplant.

The Chronic Disease Coalition is actively working to pass H.R. 3976, the Access to Marketplace Insurance Act to ensure that patients can access charitable premium assistance and choose the health plan that best meets their needs.

So how does the Chronic Disease Coalition work with kidney patients? In addition to advocating on behalf and beside kidney patients to ensure discriminatory policies don’t hinder their ability to access care, we work with patients in their communities to raise awareness and educate the public on kidney disease at an individual level and through our Ambassador Program.

After receiving an initial diagnosis, many people with kidney failure may not know what to expect from treatment, what questions they should ask their medical team and what changes may come to their daily life. Our Ambassador Program was developed on this understanding and is comprised of active advocates who battle chronic diseases and provide guidance, advice and advocate on issues that concern kidney patients. Ambassadors complete advocacy work that is relevant to their specific diseases and communities each month.

If you are interested in learning more about the CDC and how you may be able to become involved, please click here. Change happens when people speak out, share their stories and take action – the CDC is proud to provide a platform for kidney patients and all people with chronic conditions to do so.

*****

Did you click through on all the blue words? I did. I’d had inklings of what each of these meant, but the full explanation made my understanding so much better. All I can say is: Thank you!

SlowItDownCKD 2014 should be out on Amazon.com any day now. B & N takes a few weeks longer. This had formerly been the second half of the unwieldy, small print, indexless The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2. I’d vowed to separate both this book and the equally unwieldy, small print, indexless The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1 into two books each… and now I have. Of course, that leaves me with desk copies of each of the Book of Blogs which I no longer need. Want one? Let me know (but only if you haven’t received a free book from SlowItDownCKD before).

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

 

Coming Home

I’m not a joiner. I’ve never been one. That’s why I was so surprised that I joined the American Association of Kidney Patients… and even more surprised to find myself attending this year’s conference in Tampa Bay, Florida. Readers had been suggesting I do so for years, but I’m not a joiner. Let’s change that; I wasn’t a joiner. The AAKP conference made the difference.

What’s that you ask? Of course, you need to know what they are. This is from their website at https://aakp.org/,

“THE INDEPENDENT VOICE OF KIDNEY PATIENTS SINCE 1969™

The American Association of Kidney Patients is dedicated to improving the quality of life for kidney patients through education, advocacy, patient engagement and the fostering of patient communities.

Education

The American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) is recognized as the leader for patient-centered education – continually developing high quality, professionally written, edited and reviewed educational pieces covering every level of kidney disease.

Advocacy

For nearly 50 years, AAKP has been the patient voice – advocating for improved access to high-quality health care through regulatory and legislative reform at the federal level. The Association’s work has improved long term outcomes in both quality of health and the ability for patients and family members affected by kidney disease to lead a more productive and meaningful life.

Community

AAKP is leading the effort to bring kidney patients together to promote community, conversations and to seek out services that help maximize patients’ everyday lives.

An IRS registered, Sec. 501(C)(3) organization, AAKP is governed by a Board of Directors. The current board is comprised of dialysis patients, chronic kidney disease patients, [Me here: You did notice ‘chronic kidney disease patients,’ right?] transplant recipients, health care professionals and members of the public concerned with kidney disease. The board and membership are serviced by a staff of five employees under the direction of Diana Clynes, Interim Executive Director, at the AAKP National Office located in Tampa, Florida.”

What’s not mentioned here is that the organization was started by only six patients. I find that astounding, but I’ll let them explain their history:

“Founded by Patients for Patients

King County Hospital, New York

The American Association of Kidney Patients (AAKP) has a rich history in patient advocacy and kidney disease education. AAKP started in 1969 with six dialysis patients at King County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York. They wanted to form an organization that would elevate the kidney patient voice in national health care arena, provide patients with educational resources to improve their lives and give kidney patients and their family members a sense of community. They met twice a week in the hospital ward and while hooked up to primitive dialysis machines for 12 to 18 hours at a time they brainstormed, researched and eventually formed AAKP.

The group originally called themselves NAPH (National Association of Patients on Hemodialysis, which later changed to AAKP). AAKP joined forces with other patient groups to fight for the enactment of the Medicare End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Program, testifying before congressional committees, seeking public support and creating a newsletter (the forerunner of today’s AAKP RENALIFE) to keep everyone informed. This effort was crowned with success in 1972 when Congress enacted the program that continues to provide Medicare funding for dialysis and kidney transplantation.

After winning the initial and critical battle for the Medicare ESRD Program, AAKP turned its attention to other important issues — the need to establish a secure national organization to preserve the visibility and influence of patients with Congress and to develop national, educational and supportive programs.

Today & Beyond

AAKP has grown into a nationally recognized patient organization that reaches over 1 million people yearly. It remains dedicated to providing patients with the education and knowledge necessary to ensure quality of life and quality of health.”

This former non-joiner has found her association. I originally avoided the conferences because I thought they would be focused only on dialysis and transplant patients. Boy, was I ever wrong. Here are some of the outbreak (small group) sessions that dealt with other aspects of kidney disease:

Social Media (You’re right: I signed up for that one right away since I identify as a CKD awareness advocate.)

Dental Health

How Kidney Disease Impacts Family Members

Managing the Early Stage of CKD

Understanding Clinical Trials

Treatment Options

Staying Active

Veterans Administration

Caregiver’s Corner

Living Well with Kidney Disease

Avoid Infections

Of course, there were many outbreak sessions for dialysis and transplant patients as well. And there were two opportunities to lunch with experts. That’s where I tentatively learned about governmental aspects of our disease. There were opportunities to learn about nutrition, medications, working, and coping. I’ve just mentioned a few of the 50 different topics discussed.

The general sessions, the ones everyone attended, informed us of what the government’s national policy had to do with kidney disease, legislation, nutrition, patient centered care, and innovation in care (Keep an eye out for Third Kidney, Inc.’s August guest blog.).

I have not covered even half of what was offered during the conference. Did I mention renal friendly food was available and you could dialyze near the hotel if need be? The exhibitors went beyond friendly and explaining their products to being interested in who you were and why you were there. This was the most welcoming conference I’d been to in decades.

AAKP President Paul Conway summed up my feelings about the conference when he was interviewed by The Tampa Bay Times on the last day of the conference,

“This meeting is a way for us to bring patients together and educate them on trends that could affect their own health.”

I met so many others who have kidney disease and so many others who advocate for different types of kidney disease and patients’ rights. I was educated about so many areas, especially those I previously had known nothing about, for example, legislation. It was like coming home. Would I attend again? You bet’cha. Would I urge you to attend? At the risk of being redundant, you bet’cha.

I was so excited about AAKP that I almost didn’t leave myself enough space to tell you about yet another freebie. The Book of Blogs: Moderate Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1 is no longer in print since it has been divided into SlowItDownCKD 2011 and SlowItDownCKD 2012. But I still have a desk copy. Let me know if you’d like it. My only restriction is that you have not received a free book from me before.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Sorry Spiderman, That was Webinars not Webshooters

So much has been going on in my world lately that it was hard to choose what to write about today. In addition to my family, there’s the experience of my first American Association of Kidney Patients Conference, PKD, KidneyX and the list goes on. It was hard to choose, that is, until the American Kidney Fund sent me the following information. They explain who they are, what they do, and why they hold their free monthly educational seminars. Good timing here since the next webinar is this Friday. I’ll let them take over for a while and write some more once they’re done.

Oh, wait. First we need to know what a webinar is. My favorite online dictionary, Merriam-Webster, at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/webinar defines this in the following way:

“a live online educational presentation during which participating viewers can submit questions and comments”

That means it’s real time; you have to be online to participate. Don’t worry if the time doesn’t work for you because AKF has former webinars on their websites. You just won’t be able to ask your own questions, although you will be able to hear the questions others have asked during the webinar and the answers they received. Okay, now we turn this section of the blog over to The American Kidney Fund.

“The American Kidney Fund (AKF) is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people fight kidney disease and lead healthier lives.  Living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or kidney failure is incredibly taxing, and can put strain on all elements of a person’s life. And although doctors are available for patients to ask questions about their disease, many kidney patients do not know what they should ask, and are left needing answers even after leaving a doctor’s appointment.

AKF believes every patient and caregiver has the right to understand what is going on with their health, or the health of their loved one, and how to best manage it. That is where we come in.

The American Kidney Fund hosts free, monthly, educational webinars meant for patients and caregivers. Each webinar explores a different topic relevant to living well with kidney disease. Since the webinar program’s launch in 2016, AKF has hosted over 27 webinars on many topics including nutrition, employment, insurance, transplant, exercise, heart disease, advocacy, pregnancy, mental health, and more.

Webinar speakers are carefully chosen based on their knowledge, and ability to connect with a patient audience. This ensures we deliver the highest quality of information in the best way. Some speakers are kidney patients or kidney donors themselves.  The webinars are delivered from a variety of perspectives so that the advice given is both relatable and reliable.

AKF aims to take complex topics and simplify the content without taking away from the quality of information.  In an effort to be inclusive of non-English speakers, AKF has hosted a webinar entirely in Spanish on preventing and treating kidney disease, and is in the process of translating even more webinars into Spanish.

One of the highlights of the American Kidney Fund webinars is the live Q&A session held during the last 15-20 minutes of each presentation, when the audience can ask their questions in real time and receive an immediate answer from our speaker. This creates a unique space for our attendees to interact anonymously with an expert in a judgement-free zone. We understand the time-demands of being a kidney patient or caregiver, which is why all our webinars, along with the PowerPoint slides, are also uploaded to the AKF website for on-demand viewing.

Our next webinar is on Friday, June 22 from 1-2pm (EST) and will discuss why phosphorus is an important nutrient for kidney patients to consider, and the best ways to manage phosphorus through diet and medicine.  Carolyn Feibig, the dietitian and speaker for this webinar is exceptionally knowledgeable and enthusiastic about her field. If you have questions about how to manage a CKD-friendly diet, this is your opportunity to learn more and to ask your questions.

After each webinar we ask for feedback and suggestions from our audience about future webinars.  We invite you to register now, and then share which topics you would like to hear about next. We hope you will use our webinars as a tool to live the healthiest life possible with kidney disease.

American Kidney Fund www.kidneyfund.org/webinars“

I looked at some of their past webinar topics and was impressed with the variety.

My office is abuzz. SlowItDownCKD 2013, both digital and print, is available on Amazon. Give it a few weeks before it appears on B&N.com. I’m excited because I vowed to separate the unwieldy, small print, indexless The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2 into two separate books with a SlowItDownCKD title, index, and larger print just as I’d done with The Book of Blogs: Moderate Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1 (which is no longer available since it is now SlowItDownCKD 2011 and SlowItDownCKD 2012). That’s half way done now, boys and girls… I mean readers.

Here’s something a bit unusual: I have a request from a reader who has the rare kidney disease Calyceal Diverticulum. Rather than asking me to write about it, she’s looking for others with the same disease. Do we have any readers here with this disease? If so, we could make the blog a safe place to connect. Or you could email me and I’d pass on your information to her. Alternately, with her permission, I could pass her information to you. I can understand her need to communicate with others with the same disease, so please do let me know if you’d like to communicate with her.

And last, but not least, and I have to admit brain fog has me here, so bear with me if you’ve read this before. In digging through the morass of my desk, (I have been traveling a lot lately.) I uncovered a beta copy of SlowItDownCKD 2017. That means it has all the content, but I didn’t like the formatting so I re-did it. Would you like it? If so, just be the first one to contact me to let me know. Oh, one restriction: only those who haven’t received a free book from me before, please. I’d like to share the CKD information with as many people as possible.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

 

 

Eating Makes Me Hungry

I couldn’t figure it out. I had my renal diet down pat (That only took ten years, she thought snidely.) When the foods I’m sensitive to had to be removed from that diet, I worked the new-reduced-possibilities-for-food-choices diet out pretty quickly, too. But then I noticed that I was hungry pretty much only after I ate.

I’d prefer to eat only if I’m hungry, but some of my medications require food first. Okay, so I knew I had to eat at least twice a day and graze several times during the day to keep my blood glucose level. I thought I took care of that by eating a small breakfast, lunch as my main meal when I got hungry, and a much smaller, almost snack type meal for dinner.

So why did eating make me hungry? Was I not taking enough food in? Nope. I counted calories to check and was not much under my allotted 1,200 per day. So what was it?

Women’s Health at https://www.womenshealthmag.com/food/g19920742/foods-that-make-you-hungrier/ named the following seven foods that make you hungrier:

1. Whole wheat bread
2. Fruit juices
3. Egg whites
4. Green smoothies
5. Non-fact dairy
6. Pickles
7. Whole wheat crackers

Hmmm, between the renal diet and my food sensitivities I don’t eat any of these. Wait, I do eat whole eggs which contain egg whites, but I think Dr. Caspero meant only the whites for the purposes of this list.

Of course, I wanted to know why these foods make you hungrier. This quote is from the same article.

“For the most part, fat, fiber, and protein help with satiation,” says Alex Caspero, R.D. “So foods without those components will likely leave you searching for your next meal in no time.”

Reminder: R.D. means registered dietician.

I don’t eat whole wheat anything because I have sensitivity to it, but doesn’t it have fiber? That’s a yes and no answer. It does have fiber, but is more processed than regular flour which means less fiber. Fiber helps to fill you up. Side bar here:  Did you know that flour of any kind has wheat in it since it’s made from one or more of the three parts of the grain? That’s mean no bread for me.

Nope, Dr. Caspero didn’t answer my question as fully as I wanted it to be answered. Back to the drawing board, boys and girls.

Wait a minute. This from the BBC at http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zt22mp3 looks like it’s getting close to answering my question.

“Different types of food we eat affect the brain in various ways. For example, fatty foods trick the brain into believing that you have eaten fewer calories than you actually have, causing you to overeat. This is because fatty foods such as butter and fried foods contain a lot of densely packed energy.

However, other foods give a lasting sense of fullness. Fibre triggers the release of gut hormones that make you feel full. A low fibre diet though, with little or no wholemeal produce or fruit and vegetables, may leave you open to feelings of hunger.

Foods with a low GI (glycaemic index) such as nuts, vegetables and beans release energy more slowly than high GI food such as white bread and sugar. Eating more low GI foods will suppress your hunger by increasing levels of gut hormones that help you feel fuller for longer.”

Foods with a low GI, huh? This brings me back to the lessons from the Diabetes Nutritionist my family doctor sent me to when she discovered I was (and still am four years later) pre-diabetic. Okay, I can take a hint. What are some of these low GI foods?

The American Diabetes Association at http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fitness/food/what-can-i-eat/understanding-carbohydrates/glycemic-index-and-diabetes.html  was able to help us out here:

“Low GI Foods (55 or less)

• 100% stone-ground whole wheat or pumpernickel bread
• Oatmeal (rolled or steel-cut), oat bran, muesli
• Pasta, converted rice, barley, bulgar
• Sweet potato, corn, yam, lima/butter beans, peas, legumes and lentils
• Most fruits, non-starchy vegetables and carrots

Medium GI (56-69)

• Whole wheat, rye and pita bread
• Quick oats
• Brown, wild or basmati rice, couscous

High GI (70 or more)

• White bread or bagel
• Corn flakes, puffed rice, bran flakes, instant oatmeal
• Shortgrain white rice, rice pasta, macaroni and cheese from mix
• Russet potato, pumpkin
• Pretzels, rice cakes, popcorn, saltine crackers
• melons and pineapple”

According the renal diet I follow, the Northern Arizona Council on Renal Nutrition Diet, I could eat all of these foods. According to my food sensitivities, I could only eat oatmeal, some fruits, and vegetables. Maybe that’s why eating makes me hungry.

Take a look at this. Redbook (and to think I smirked at my mom for reading this magazine when I was a teenager) at https://www.redbookmag.com/body/healthy-eating/g2819/foods-that-make-you-hungry/?slide=1 explains about fruit making you feel hungrier:

“’Fruit juice may already be on your no-go list, but if you’re eating more than one serving of the whole variety (i.e. one banana or one cup of berries), you may want to scale back. It may have nutritional benefits, but fruit is not going to help suppress your appetite,’ says Perlmutter. ‘It contains both fructose and glucose, which won’t signal insulin, causing your appetite to rage on.’”

Perlmutter is David Perlmutter, MD, a board-certified neurologist and author of Brain Maker.

Got it: More fiber, less sugar. Now the only question is can I get myself to adhere to that… and can you if you choose to stop being hungrier after eating than you were before.

Talking about magazines, Arizona Health and Living at https://issuu.com/arizonahealthandliving/docs/arizona_health_and_living_magazine__9a2d374f4dffc2 is helping me spread awareness of Chronic Kidney Disease. This is in their June 2018 issue.

 

Guess what I found when I was preparing my non-CKD book for last Thursday night’s reading at our local The Dog Eared Pages Used Book Store. You’re right. It’s a copy of the newly minted (um, printed) SlowItDownCKD 2017. Would you like it? All that I require is your address and that you haven’t received a free book from me before.

Random thought: I cannot believe I just chose a Father’s Day gift for my son-in-law’s first Father’s Day. Add my youngest’s upcoming nuptials and this is a very happy world I live in. Here’s hoping yours is a happy one, too.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Getting It Right Once and For All

Brain fog is one thing, but I have forgotten the meaning of a certain phrase, looked it up, forgotten its meaning again, looked it up, forgotten its meaning again and so on for years. This has got to stop. That’s why I thought writing about it might ensconce the meaning in my brain once and for all. Bet you’re wondering what the phrase is by now. It’s multiple myeloma.

I think we all know that multiple means more than one, but more than one what in this case? And does adding it to the root word – myeloma – change its meaning in any way? Let’s find out together.

Do you know what the ICD is? Let me refresh your memory if you do. I defined it in What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease in the following way:

“International Statistical Classification of Disease and Related Health Problems, provides the medical codes for illnesses.”

The Whole Health Organization currently released the 10^th edition. There are three different codes for multiple myeloma in this latest edition according to www.findacode.com. I thought one of them would help us.

ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code C90.00

Multiple myeloma not having achieved remission

Hypogammaglobulinemia co-occurrent and due to multiple myeloma; Light chain disease; Light chain nephropathy; Light chain nephropathy due to multiple myeloma; Multiple myeloma; Multiple myeloma stage i; Multiple myeloma stage ii; Multiple myeloma stage iii; Multiple myeloma w hypogammaglobulinemia; Smoldering multiple myeloma; Smoldering myeloma; Multiple myeloma with failed remission; Multiple myeloma NOS

ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code C90.0

Multiple myeloma

solitary myeloma (C90.3-); solitary plasmactyoma (C90.3-); Kahler’s disease; Medullary plasmacytoma; Myelomatosis; Plasma cell myeloma

ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code C90.01

Multiple myeloma in remission

ICD-10-CM Diagnosis Code C90.02

Multiple myeloma in relapse

We can discount C90.01 and C90.2 from the get go because we know that remission means subsiding and relapse means whatever it is has become active again.

I didn’t really understand the terms in the diagnosis codes but, from my fractured remembering, gathered this has to do with a sort of cancer. No harm; we know the coding and now need to find out what it is that’s being coded.

I jumped right over to the American Cancer Society at https://www.cancer.org/cancer/multiple-myeloma/about/what-is-multiple-myeloma.html and found exactly what I was afraid I would:

“Multiple myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells. Normal plasma cells are found in the bone marrow and are an important part of the immune system. The immune system is made up of several types of cells that work together to fight infections and other diseases. Lymphocytes (lymph cells) are one of the main types of white blood cells in the immune system and include T cells and B cells. Lymphocytes are in many areas of the body, such as lymph nodes, the bone marrow, the intestines, and the bloodstream.

When B cells respond to an infection, they mature and change into plasma cells. Plasma cells make the antibodies (also called immunoglobulins) that help the body attack and kill germs. Plasma cells are found mainly in the bone marrow. Bone marrow is the soft tissue inside bones. In addition to plasma cells, normal bone marrow is also the home for other blood cells such as red cells, white cells, and platelets.

In general, when plasma cells become cancerous and grow out of control, this is called multiple myeloma. The plasma cells make an abnormal protein (antibody) known by several different names, including monoclonal immunoglobulin, monoclonal protein (M-protein), M-spike, or paraprotein.

There are, however, other plasma cell disorders that also have abnormal plasma cells but do not meet the criteria to be called active multiple myeloma.”

One of them is monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance (MGUS) which I blogged about on April 30^th of this year. Plasma cell disorders seem to be occupying my mind lately.

Wait, wait! Bone marrow. As was mentioned in SlowItDownCKD 2011, in writing about a Drugs.com article, it’s the kidneys that cause the

“…bone marrow … produce red blood cells.”

Yet, it’s the white blood cells that are part of the immune system. Remember my daughter Nima’s account of her gall bladder being removed in The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2?

“…my white blood count was elevated to 12, an indication the gallbladder was infected.”

That 12 showed that she had many more than usual white blood cells which were necessary to fight the infection.

The University of Rochester Medical Center at https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=160&ContentID=35 explains succinctly:

“Your white blood cell count can be low for a number of reasons—when something is destroying the cells more quickly than the body can replenish them or when the bone marrow stops making enough white blood cells to keep you healthy. When your white blood cell count is low, you are extremely susceptible to any illness or infection, which can spiral into a serious health threat.”

One of those somethings could be multiple myeloma.

There’s another consideration here. As Chronic Kidney Disease patients, we have compromised immune systems. DaVita explained in SlowItDownCKD 2015:

DaVita at http://www.davita.com/kidney-disease/overview/treatment-overview/immunizations–which-shots-you-need-and-why/e/4837 tells us,

“…. The immune system of a person with chronic kidney disease (CKD) becomes weakened, making it difficult to fight off many diseases and infections….”

This is one great big ball of wax. While bone marrow replacement is one treatment and radiation another for multiple myeloma, the most often employed treatment is drug therapy. Here’s where the kidneys come into play again. In SlowItDownCKD 2012, I quoted myself because I felt the following was so important:

“You may need to take a lower dosage of whatever drug was prescribed or, perhaps, take it less often. If your kidneys  are  not  fully  functioning,  the  drugs  are  not  effectively being removed from your blood. It would be similar to willfully taking a drug overdose if you do not make your doctors aware of your CKD when they prescribe for you.”

Uh-oh. I need some help here. Healthline at https://www.healthline.com/health/cancer/multiple-myeloma-kidney-failure to the rescue!

“Kidney failure in multiple myeloma is a complicated process that involves different processes and mechanisms. The way this happens is the abnormal proteins travel to the kidneys and deposit there, causing obstruction in the kidney tubules and altered filtering properties. Additionally, elevated calcium levels can cause crystals to form in the kidneys, which causes damage. Dehydration, and medications such as NSAIDS (Ibuprofen, naproxen) can also cause kidney damage.”

This was difficult to write, so thanks for keeping me company as I struggled with it.

One final note. I blogged about Antidote, a clinical trial company, last year. You’ll find them on the blogroll, too. This Wednesday, they’ll be helping to celebrate Clinical Trials Day by hosting a Twitter chat from noon to 1 pm. The topic is storytelling for awareness and you (yes, you) are invited to join in. Use #research chat. For those new to twitter chats, you need to follow Antidote to join the chat. Their ‘handle’ is @antidote_me. I’d be there myself if I didn’t already have one of those specialists appointments that you have to wait months and months for. My loss.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Dare You Have Your First Mother’s Day?

Mother’s Day is this Sunday… and it’s my step-daughter’s first. That led me to remember my first with Ms. Nima Beckie Rosensfit and  I realized I’d never even heard of Chronic Kidney Disease then. But what if I had and I wanted to have a baby. What would I have to know?

That got me going. I know I blogged about this topic in February of this year, but I wanted to see if there was enough information for a part 2 to that blog. But, first, let’s take a look at how pregnancy affects the kidneys in a non-ckd woman.

The US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4089195/  helpful here:

“GFR rises early to a peak of 40% to 50% that of prepregnancy levels, resulting in lower levels of serum creatinine, urea, and uric acid. There is a net gain of sodium and potassium, but a greater retention of water, with gains of up to 1.6 L. Through effects of progesterone and alterations in RAAS, the systemic vascular resistance falls, leading to lower blood pressure and an increased RPF.”

You may need a reminder of some of these terms. Let’s see if What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease has their definitions. Aha! There are potassium and creatinine.

““Creatinine is … a compound released by voluntary muscle contraction. It tells the body to repair itself and grow stronger.

“Potassium: One of the electrolytes, important because it counteracts sodium’s effect on blood pressure.”

Why is this counteraction important you ask.  This tidbit from SlowItDownCKD 2011 explains:

“Then I found this in BrightHub.com’s February 13th article The Importance of the Potassium and Sodium Balance.

‘When there is potassium and sodium balance, cells, nerves and muscles can  all  function  smoothly.  With  an  imbalance,  which  is almost  always due to both an excess of sodium, and a deficiency of potassium, a set of reactions occurs leading to high blood pressure and unnecessary strain on blood vessels, the heart and the kidneys. Research has shown that there is a direct link between chronic levels of low potassium and kidney disease, lung disorders, hypertension and stroke’.”

And urea? The newly published SlowItDownCKD 2017 contains this information:

“http://www.patient.co.uk/health/routine-kidney-function-blood-test has the simplest explanation.

‘Urea is a waste product formed from the breakdown of proteins. Urea is usually passed out in the urine. A high blood level of urea (‘uraemia’) indicates that the kidneys may not be working properly or that you are dehydrated (have low body water content).’”

It’s probably common knowledge that serum means in the blood rather than urine and that uric acid is the waste that remains when your body’s cells die. What baffled me was RAAS and RPP. It turns out that RAAS is renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system which, while interesting, would simply take too long to explain for this blog’s purpose. RPF is renal plasma flow. I love words, but this was getting to be a bit much for even me. I wanted to get to CKD in pregnancy. So let’s do that.

Let’s say I needed more reassurance that I could have a baby even though I had CKD. I felt like I found just that when I discovered RareRenal  at http://rarerenal.org/patient-information/pregnancy-and-chronic-kidney-disease-patient-information/and what they had to say about pregnancy and CKD.

“Good antenatal care from the earliest stages of pregnancy improves outcomes generally. This is particularly true for women with CKD. Planning for pregnancy allows women with CKD to get pregnant at the right time, while on the right medications and in the best possible health. To achieve this all women with significant CKD should receive pre-pregnancy advice so that they can assess the potential risk and to ensure that everything is in place to minimise it.

These are the key things to think about before getting pregnant:

When should a woman with CKD get pregnant?  This depends on the nature of the kidney disease. In general if a woman’s kidney function is likely to get worse over time it is better to plan the pregnancy sooner rather than later while function is still good. On the other hand, for a kidney disease that flares up and then settles down, such as Lupus nephritis, it is better to wait until the flare has settled for at least six months. Other factors to take into account are a woman’s age and fertility. They may have had drugs in the past to treat a kidney condition that can impair fertility (e.g. cyclophosphamide). If so they may need to take advice on whether this is an additional problem. Should she get pregnant at all? There are very few women these days who are advised not to get pregnant. Even then it is always up to the woman (and her partner) whether to take the risk. It is much better to be forewarned of the possible problems and to discuss these in advance.

Will she need extra medicines when she’s pregnant?  Women trying to get pregnant should start taking the vitamin folic acid to reduce the chance of their baby having spina bifida, an abnormality of the spinal cord. The normal dose of folic acid is 400ug per day and can be bought over the counter. However, if the folate level is low or a patient is on the drug azathioprine which affects the way folic acid works, the dose of 5mg daily may be prescribed. No other over the counter vitamins are required unless specifically advised by a doctor or midwife. All pregnant patients should avoid additional supplements of vitamin A. If vitamin D levels are low GPs will advise correction with high dose prescribed vitamin D (also known as cholecalciferol). Women with kidney diseases are at higher risk of pre-eclampsia. Aspirin lowers the risk of pre eclampsia, and women with CKD are usually offered a low dose aspirin (75mg once daily) throughout pregnancy unless there are specific reasons not to take it e.g. they are allergic to aspirin. Pregnant women with a high level of protein in their urine have an increased risk of developing blood clots (thrombosis). This can be reduced by small daily injections of low molecular weight heparin. Heparin reduces the way the blood clots. Both pregnancy and CKD can cause a low blood count (anaemia). When combined, anaemia can be more of a problem. Iron tablets or injections may be used and some women need to take the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) as  a weekly or monthly injection to overcome the anaemia. Blood transfusions are usually avoided in pregnancy. Pregnancy alters the control of sugar (glucose) in the body. This may be worse for patients on steroids (e.g. prednisolone), those from an Asian or African background, or who are overweight. Patients may develop a condition called gestational diabetes (diabetes caused by pregnancy) and require treatment with insulin.” How very reassuring. I’m ready… I mean are you ready to have your baby?

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Something Else I Didn’t Know

One of the members of a Facebook Chronic Kidney Disease support group and I got into a bit of give and take about last week’s blog. It started with one topic and, as conversations are wont to do, ended up being about something entirely different: mgus. This is what I ended up responding:

“I don’t know mgus, either. I think the only way I can be of any help to you is to suggest you speak with your renal nutritionist and make sure she knows you also have mgus. Sorry! Hmmm, maybe I should learn about mgus and blog about it.”

As the week went on, I realized there was no “maybe” about it. So let’s learn about mgus together.

According to my old time favorite The Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/mgus/symptoms-causes/syc-20352362, mgus is:

“Monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance (MGUS) is a condition in which an abnormal protein — known as monoclonal protein or M protein — is in your blood. The protein is produced in a type of white blood cell (plasma cells) in your bone marrow.

MGUS usually causes no problems. But sometimes it can progress over years to other disorders, including some forms of blood cancer.

It’s important to have regular checkups to closely monitor monoclonal gammopathy so that if it does progress, you get earlier treatment. If there’s no disease progression, MGUS doesn’t require treatment.”

Whoa! Looks like we need a lot of backtracking here. Let’s start with monoclonal. We know ‘mono’ means one and the ‘al’ at the end of the word means of or about. Now let’s deal with the unknown: ‘clon’. Dictionary.com at http://www.dictionary.com/browse/clone tells us it’s really clone (which you’ve probably already guessed) and means:

1. a cell, cell product, or organism that is genetically identical to the unit or individual from which it was derived.
2. a population of identical units, cells, or individuals that derive from the same ancestral line.

Oh, clone… as in Dolly, the sheep back in Scotland in 1995. Got it.

And gammopathy? That ‘o’ in the middle is just a connective so we’re really dealing with ‘gamm’ and ‘pathy’. You probably already know ‘pathy’. The Free Dictionary at https://www.thefreedictionary.com/-pathy offers a few definitions.

1. indicating feeling, sensitivity, or perception: telepathy.
2. (Pathology) indicating disease or a morbid condition: psychopathy.
3. (Pathology) indicating a method of treating disease: osteopathy.

Number two is what we need for our purposes.

That leaves us with ‘gamm’, which I thought was part of gamma considering the definition of the disease. The first medical definition in The Merriam-Webster Dictionary at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gamma was helpful here.

“of or relating to one of three or more closely related chemical substances

• the gamma chain of hemoglobin

• γ-yohimbine

—used somewhat arbitrarily to specify ordinal relationship or a particular physical form and especially one that is allotropic, isomeric, or stereoisomeric (as in gamma benzene hexachloride)”

I’d have to agree if you’re thinking this is getting a bit too technical to continue down this particular road. Let’s go back to the disease itself and see what it may have to do with CKD. Hmmm, protein is mentioned in the definition and proteinuria can be a problem in CKD. Is that the connection?

We Are Macmillan, a cancer support group from England at https://www.macmillan.org.uk/information-and-support/diagnosing/causes-and-risk-factors/pre-cancerous-conditions/mgus.html, tells us:

“People with MGUS make an abnormal protein, called a paraprotein or M-protein, which is found in the urine or blood.”

I see. This M-protein does show up in the urine.

That did it. I jumped right back to the Mayo Clinic and learned that Chronic Kidney Disease may be a complication of MSUG. But, then again, so may blood clots and bone fractures.

Feeling a bit frustrated, I thought maybe symptoms would be helpful. The University of Rochester Medical Center at https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?ContentTypeID=134&ContentID=121 offers this list.

Symptoms of monoclonal gammopathies vary among these conditions, but can include:

• Anemia or low red blood cells counts
• Lack of energy (fatigue) or tiredness
• Weakness
• Pain in the bones or soft tissues
• Tingling or numbness in the feet or hands
• Infection that keeps coming back
• Increased bruising
• Bleeding
• Weight loss
• Headache
• Vision problems
• Swelling
• Mental changes

Anemia and fatigue may also be symptoms of CKD. Yet, both MSUG and CKD are often symptomless.

To complicate matters, there’s also a disease called monoclonal gammopathy of renal significance. That’s when the monoclonal gammopathy causes the CKD. It sounds like this was not the case with the reader. She just happens to have both monoclonal gammopathy and CKD.

I’m going to switch gears here. I received an email from the American Kidney Fund (AKF) asking me if I would write about their upcoming webinar on Depression. Who could say no to that request?

“Each month, AKF hosts an educational webinar for kidney patients and their loved ones about living well with kidney disease…. Experts cover important topics and there is always a live Q&A session afterwards where viewers can send in their questions. You can find more information about the upcoming webinar here: http://www.kidneyfund.org/training/webinars/

Our next webinar for May 23rd is Depression: the overlooked complication of kidney disease.”

I’ve watched some of the webinars and found them helpful. I think you will, too.

You know that promise I made about separating my unwieldy The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2 into two separate books – SlowItDownCKD 2013 & SlowItDownCKD 2104 – with larger print and a more comprehensive index? You know, just as I did when I separated The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1 (now ‘retired’ as a book no longer in print is called) into SlowItDownCKD 2011 & SlowItDownCKD 2102. I am proud to announce that I’ve actually started that process.

For a retired person, my calendar sure is full and busy seems to be my middle name. I vow to have the SlowItDownCKD series completed (until it’s time to publish SlowItDownCKD 2018, that is) by the end of the summer.

Happy Mother’s Day this coming weekend. I’m going to enjoy the fact that it’s my step-daughter’s first…. and hope we get to meet The Little Prince sooner rather than later. Living in two different states was never this hard before his birth.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Joy to the World

As Three Dog Night sang in Hoyt Axton’s song:

“Joy to the world
All the boys and girls now
Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea
Joy to you and me”

Turn up your speakers and give a listen. See if you don’t feel more joy just from listening. Thanks to Three Dog Night for placing that grin back on my face when it’s gotten lost… and to YouTube, too.

I’ve written about what stress, grief, and shock do to your body, but with recent events I have reason to wonder what happiness does to your body. The birth of our first grandchild has revealed levels of joy I never knew existed. Add to that our youngest’s engagement and you’ll find me floating at least three feet above the ground most of the time.

I did my usual poking around and found some answers.

Calgary Psychology at http://www.calgarypsychology.com/happiness/correlation-health-happiness has some information for us, although it’s not as recent as I’d like it to be since it was published in 2010:

“A study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined the link between happiness and a number of health factors in 200 Caucasian adults, age 45-59 years, all of whom worked for the government in London, England. The study assessed each participant on a work day and weekend day, measuring them at work and play for a number of criteria including blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormone (cortisol) levels. Participants were measured under normal conditions and after a mental stress test. Under each condition participants ranked their happiness on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). There were no differences in happiness between people who were married or single, male or female or of varying socioeconomic status; however the happiest participants had the best results across the board for the health markers. I.e. happier people had lower heart rates, and an average of 32% lower levels of cortisol which can have a direct effect on other elements such as blood sugar.”

Cortisol? Anyone remember what that is? Let’s have a reminder, please. I found this in SlowItDownCKD 2016. It’s from Reference.com at https://www.reference.com/science/function-adrenal-gland-72cba864e66d8278.

“Cortisol is a hormone that controls metabolism and helps the body react to stress, according to Endocrineweb. It affects the immune system and lowers inflammatory responses in the body. …”

Want a little reminder about metabolism? I do. According to Dr. Ananya Mandal from News Medical Life Sciences at https://www.news-medical.net/life-sciences/What-is-Metabolism.aspx:

“Metabolism is a term that is used to describe all chemical reactions involved in maintaining the living state of the cells and the organism. Metabolism can be conveniently divided into two categories:

• Catabolism – the breakdown of molecules to obtain energy
• Anabolism – the synthesis of all compounds needed by the cells”

Aha! So joy or being happy helps the body produce the hormone that obtains energy and synthesizes what we need to live. Now I get it why I actually feel better physically when I’m happy. I was in the throes of bronchitis when my grandson was born and started getting better right away. Magic? Nope, just plain joy at work in my body.

Notice joy may have an affect via cortisol on your blood sugar, too. Blood sugar ? Why is that important? The following is from a study published in The American Journal of Kidney Disease that was included in SlowItDownCKD 2011

“Good control of blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol levels and body weight can delay the loss of kidney

function.”

And lower heart rates? How does that help us? I’ve don’t think I’ve written about that so I hopped right over to my longtime favorite the Mayo Clinic at https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/expert-answers/heart-rate/faq-20057979.

“A normal resting heart rate for adults ranges from 60 to 100 beats a minute. Generally, a lower heart rate at rest implies more efficient heart function and better cardiovascular fitness.”

Good news. Being happy – joyous in my case – is good for the heart, which automatically means it’s good for the kidneys since your heart health has a lot to do with your kidney health and vice-versa.

Let’s not forget that the lower levels of cortisol joy causes “lowers inflammatory responses in the body.” Chronic Kidney Disease is an inflammatory disease. I love it! Just by being happy, I’m helping myself with my CKD.

As the late night television commercials cautioned us once up on a time: But wait, there’s more. I turned to the Greater Good Science Center based at UC Berkeley. According to the website, they, “provide a bridge between the research community and the general public.”

That’s where I found this quote from a 2015 article at: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_ways_happiness_is_good_for_your_health.

“Love and happiness may not actually originate in the heart, but they are good for it. For example, a 2005 paper found that happiness predicts lower heart rate and blood pressure. In the study, participants rated their happiness over 30 times in one day and then again three years later. The initially happiest participants had a lower heart rate on follow-up (about six beats slower per minute), and the happiest participants during the follow-up had better blood pressure.”

Oh, blood pressure. This is also called hypertension and is defined in What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease this way:

“A possible cause of CKD, 140/90mm Hg is currently considered hypertension, a risk factor for heart disease and stroke, too.”

That book was written in 2010. The guidelines changed in November of last year. Take a look at the infogram from the American Heart Association. I’ve also learned that hypertension is the second leading cause of CKD.

What’s the first? You guessed it: diabetes or blood sugar that is not controlled. I am overjoyed at the results of my poking around about joy. By being fully present to the joy in my life, by simply feeling that joy, while I personally can no longer prevent my CKD, I can further slow down the progression of the decline in my kidney function. Being happy is also helping to prevent diabetes from entering my life and working on keeping my blood pressure closer to where it belongs.

This joy just goes on and on for me. This year alone, it’s been celebration after celebration: birthdays, anniversaries, the birth, the engagement, triumphs for those I love. My list grows and grows. Why not consider a little joy for your body’s sake, if not for your mental state?

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Unforgetting Us

Again, and again you’ve heard me rant about why we, as CKD patients, are not diagnosed earlier so we can start treating our Chronic Kidney Disease with – at least – life style changes earlier. That could help us slow down the progression of decline in our kidney function. I maintain that if only my primary care physician had told me when he first noticed that 39% GFR, maybe I wouldn’t be in stage 3 of 5. Maybe those now on dialysis or searching for a transplant wouldn’t be in the position they are, either.

It looks like our doctors are starting to feel the same way. Thank goodness. As a CKD Awareness Advocate, I’ve met others with the same advocacy. Robin is a doctor who feels the same, and someone I consider a friend. When I read her article, I jumped at the chance to guest blog it since she has the understanding of the medicalese that can frustrate the rest of us. Without further ado, Dr. Robin Rose…

Doctor, doctor give me this news: Primary care and CKD

Nephrology News & Issues, March 2018
Robin Rose, MD

Everyone’s mind jumps right to end-stage renal disease and dialysis when kidney disease is mentioned, even among clinicians. By the time a patient needs dialysis, pathology has been smoldering, sometimes for prolonged periods of time. Nephrology gracefully manages later-stage kidney disease, but it seems the incipient cases remain in the shadows. In general practice, kidneys are often ignored.

What I want to know is this: How can we effectively forge a path between nephrology and primary care — take the reins and together harness the epidemic, starting early while the pathology of the disease may be more easily addressed?

Too many patients and too many of their primary care providers are simply unaware of renal status. The staggering number of stage 3 chronic kidney disease (CKD) cases dramatically dwindles by stage 4, and CKD exacerbates so many underlying pathologies. Morbidity leads to mortality, often without recognition of underlying kidney damage as the prominent culprit. With the worldwide nephrologist shortage, and clearly with the high cost of end-stage care, it may well be time to expand the renal education and early/moderate CKD clinical savvy in primary care.

Build CKD recognition

As a physician, I recognize pharmaceutical options as a small part of longitudinal CKD care. The point of early diagnosis is assisting patients with the arduous and necessary journey to lifestyle change. Primary care has embraced this supportive role for other diagnoses, such as cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc. This type of synergistic/collaborative care — reinforcing specialist input, following each person with his or her myriad issues — is the perfect fit for CKD.

How do we communicate to make our generalist and specialist intent merge into one clear target — enhanced patient quality of life? How can we make this work — to commence having a serious problem-solving conversation?

The literature suggests early nephrologist involvement improves long-term outcomes. Proactive primary care offers longitudinal guidance for making the enormous lifestyle changes in diet, exercise, stress management, hydration, sleep and toxic exposures, while offering psychological counseling that is required to achieve such changes. The cross-over benefits for patients’ other diagnoses is well known.

This concept of primary care nephrology could unfold into clinical reality as a professional, collaborative cooperation. With the diagnostic refinement of the nephrologist, a primary care physician can guide patients with CKD with the balancing act of comorbidities, medication management and optimal kidney lifestyle.

Likewise, what this family physician recognizes as critically useful from the consulting nephrologist is the expert focus on pathology with a diagnosis and back-up. We must agree that things like diet, exercise, sleep, stress and toxins have longitudinal importance for our patients with CKD — important enough for the primary care physician to make time with motivated patients to assess and co-discover actionable adaptations. Comorbidities with time will certainly guide the process. The success of this requires supportive enthusiasm from the specialist.

Vision of collaboration

Here is an example: A 46-year-old perimenopausal working single mother, with a history 12 years prior of pregnancy-induced hypertension and diabetes, has moderate proteinuria and a creatinine of 1.2. A nephrology consult will crystallize her individual needs. A primary care plan will address medications, CKD lifestyle needs and illuminate the notable overlap of benefits for her other diagnoses.

During the course of four visits looking at her stress, relationship to food and exercise needs, she exhibits admirable motivation, paying attention to what and how she eats and enjoying a lunchtime walking program. Reinforcing these successes while addressing medications, diet, sleep, etc. every 3 months offers an opportunity to protect nephrons and proceed further in the adaptations needed.

At this time, nephrologists cannot assume this is taking place in all primary care settings. Primary care providers, guiding patients with CKD safely through commonplace medical scenarios — like infectious illnesses, traumatic injuries, surgeries, travel and stress — need to grasp a breadth of nephrology basics. Our patients with CKD are at increased risk of acute kidney injury. Astute protection means we save nephrons. This author would welcome renal rotations at all levels of medical training, with a facet of focus on longitudinal outpatient, early and moderate CKD care. This vision of collaboration, with a commitment to early diagnosis and intervention, offers the opportunity to learn how to guide patients to a less inflammatory lifestyle.

The urgency is there. Can we talk?

• For more information:
• Robin Rose, MD, is a semi-retired family physician with a long-time interest in chronic illness and the role of lifestyle, with an interest in incipient and moderate CKD as a current focus. She lives in Molokai, Hawaii.

Disclosure: Rose reports no relevant financial disclosures.

Here’s a suggestion. Why not bring this article to your primary care physician? It could be that renal disease has never really crossed his mind despite the fact that 90% of the 31 million people in the U.S. who have CKD are unaware they do. You may not benefit from this – already having been diagnosed – but the next patient may… and the one after that… and the one after that…keep going.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!

Compliance 101

Welcome to the last blog of National Kidney Month 2018. We all know I rarely write about dialysis or transplant, but a friend who is awaiting a transplant brought this book to my attention. This particular section of the book sparked my interest since non-compliance can be an issue in any stage of kidney disease. One part of my mission is to create awareness among Chronic Kidney Disease patients, their friends, families, and loved ones of how important compliance with their medical team is. Dr. Michael B. Fisher is a nephrologist who thinks the same way.

Today’s blog is mostly an excerpt from the upcoming book Surviving Kidney Disease. According to his book’s web page:

“Dr. Fisher received his medical degree from SUNY in 1968 and did his nephrology fellowship at UCLA in 1972. He has been the Medical Director of Acute Dialysis at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital from 1984 to present. He has done 131 teaching lectures at this hospital including topics such as management of malignant hypertension, renal management of toxic shock syndrome, and NSAID drug-induced renal failure. Dr. Fisher was voted by the medical residents the outstanding teacher of the year on 1988. He is active in promoting well-being among renal patients and educating them on care options.”

Dr. Fisher, the floor (er, keyboard) is yours:

“Each patient is unique. A teenager will have different issues than a professor in his fifties, or an elderly diabetic lady whose understanding of English is limited. Therefore, the only effective way to deal with non-compliance is to understand the issues that will interfere with the learning curve for a patient and then customize the lesson plan for the specific needs. The goal is to prevent major non-compliance by initiating a program of education where the patient and family learn why it is critical to make the sacrifice and are motivated to follow doctor’s orders.

The patient will gradually feel better over time after just having started dialysis and that is when the teaching really begins. If the patient is a transplant candidate, discussion of how to get a kidney is uplifting and sets the stage for the need to follow the prescription, no matter how difficult.

The truth is this is a difficult challenge because of the complex nature of kidney disease and the human mind.  I have found that by immediately presenting the possibility for a kidney transplant while also explaining why the need for a strict diet and appropriate fluid restriction, people begin to see a way out of their predicament, spirits soar, and their inner source of strength takes over.  Hope inspires people to find the how to overcome the most daunting challenges.

Here is a synopsis of a recent patient care meeting with a 22 year -old, father of 2 who has been on hemodialysis for 5 years. He is on the transplant list and could be called at any time. If he were called tomorrow, he would be rejected because his parathyroid hormone level (PTH) is ten times above the target number.

He appeared at a patient care meeting, attended by our full staff. When we reminded him that his PTH level was 2000 and that we had been aiming for 200 he was unfazed. Then I explained to him again that even though he felt well, at any time he might suffer from severe bone pain from a disease which is silent even though it is damaging the bones and every organ system. I discovered that he works five days a week despite having dialysis treatments three times in a week. His mother-in-law prepares his lunch every day which consists of a half of a chicken which provides high quality protein and with it an enormous amount of phosphorus. He also failed to take a drug called Sensipar which lowers PTH.

He has felt well, looks muscular, and rather healthy, so in his mind why fix it if it doesn’t seem broken?  I must have finally reached him when I told him what likely happening to his bones and other organs. The most powerful argument that I presented was that he was so close to being called for a kidney transplant, his ticket to a normal life, one where he could eat and drink that things he loved the most.

The bell rang in his mind. He asked questions, took notes, made an appointment to see me to further discuss kidney transplant, his diet and medicines. The social worker connected with him as did the dietician who was going to talk to the mother-in-law about reducing phosphorus in the diet and placing his pills in an organizer. He left with more knowledge and hope that if he talk (sic) ownership of his diet, he would soon receive that kidney transplant that would change his life forever.”

When I was a high school English teacher in New York City a million years ago – or so it seems – my feeling was that you have to meet the student at whatever level they are and start their education from there. I carried that feeling with me into my CKD Awareness Advocacy. It seems Dr. Fisher does, too. As CKD patients, we are each unique.

That’s one of the many and varied reasons I cover so many different topics and often revisit a topic several years later. Just as with my high school students, CKD patients may not be ready to hear medical advances or suggestions to make living with CKD easier the first, second, third, or even 99^th time they hear – or read – it. They may gloss over it when it’s presented one way, but glom onto it when presented another.

Just in case you’re wondering how Dr. Fisher knows what a patient feels like, this is from his website at http://www.michaelfishermd.com/:

“I suddenly became a patient myself and came face-to-face with the idea that I was no longer a part of the ‘temporarily healthy.’ Walking in the slippers of my patients allowed me to more fully understand the challenges they faced and the courage that they found to overcome them….”

Although not a renal patient, he could see for himself just how brave you need to be to listen, to comply, to ask questions, to make suggestions as a patient who is probably scared out of your mind with your diagnose to begin with.

Here’s to all of us: the nephrologists, renal nutritionists, phlebotomists, schedulers, and the patients themselves. May this be your month for learning all you can about Chronic Kidney Disease.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!