Nutrition, our eating habits, played a strong role on whether our CKD will be slowed down or it will worsen until our kidneys are no longer working "renal failure" or End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).
As we now know, the stronger contributors to ESRD are High Blood Pressure and Diabetes, and these two can be controlled, either increased or decreased, depending on our eating habits.
Blood Pressure can be controlled, by choosing healthy foods, perform regular activities, such as walking. Lowering your blood pressure will drastically prevent or delayed the risk of CKD.
If you have been diagnose with high blood pressure, ask your Doctor for a diet or eating plan called Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), this plan may include food choices such as poultry, fish, nuts, grains and small or no salt (sodium), it is very important to learn about low-sodium and salt-free products.
Diabetes, a diabetic patient, should monitor blood glucose levels as directed by a Doctor, also patients with high A1C or Glycated Hemoglobin, this blood test will give you an average of your glucose concentration of the past 2 or 3 months, ask your Doctor for your proper A1C level. In order to maintain proper glucose levels, we need to be very careful of our food choices, (ask your Doctor for the best meal plan that will fit you), another factors that we have to consider are :
- The amount of food we eat each day, has to be the same.
- You have to take your meals and snacks, always at the same hour.
- You can not skip any meal or snack.
- Medication has to be taken at the same hours, everyday.
- Perform a slight activity, such as walking.
Remember, we still have some control to prevent or delayed CKD by changing our eating habits, always choosing healthy foods. Let's live well!!
We have two kidneys and each of them is about the size of a baseball, our kidney's function is to filter wastes and excess water out of your blood in the form of urine, another functions are to maintain a chemical balance within our body, also they control our blood pressure and create hormones.
Healthy kidneys are crucial to keep a good life, unfortunately, due to several factors such as high blood pressure, diabetes and the excessive use of pain killers, smoking and drugs can lead to Chronic Kidney Disease or CKD.
CKD means that the kidneys are no longer filtering your blood properly, therefore, waste and water start to build up on your body and if no treatment is receive, this may lead to death.
Note that CKD can be treated with different types of medications, but if no treatment is receive, this can develop on a kidney failure and at this stage, there are only two solutions to stay alive, Dialysis and Transplant. There is absolutely no reason why you should get CKD or Kidney Failure, please learn about what you can do to prevent CKD, early detection and learn more about the different treatments. We will discuss all of these information on this blog.
The first steps you need to take in order to prevent CKD are:
- Reduce your salt intake as much as possible, salt contains sodium, always check for products that are level as a "low sodium", sodium contributes to water retention on our blood and this cause high blood pressure, which is one of the leaders on CKD.
- Check your blood pressure regularly and ask your doctor what is the best parameter for you and keep it that way.
- If you are diabetic, control your glucose level, high glucose level is another strong contributor to CKD. Avoid this habits: smoking, high sodium foods, fast foods (as much as possible) and sodas.
What can you do to early detect CKD? Unfortunately there are no symptoms for early CKD, the best way to find out about your kidneys condition is by urine and blood labs.
Ask your doctor for a blood lab you need to know what is your GFR or Glomerular Filtration Rate, this will tell you how much blood your kidneys are filtering a minute, 60 or higher GFR are the normal levels, below that you have CKD, unfortunately, you can not do anything to raise the GFR, but the good news is that you can do a lot to prevent to get lower.
Urine lab, you have to check your urine to discard the possibility that it contains protein, this due to poor filtration of the kidneys or CKD. That's right, there shouldn't be any traces of protein on your urine.
Early stage CKD, means that your kidneys have lost a small percentage of their filtering function, at this stage there are several medications that will help to slow down the damage of the kidneys, please remember that at an early stage,
there are no symptoms, is very important to perform regular blood and urine tests, specially if you suffer from diabetes and high blood pressure.
End Stage Renal Disease or ESRD, at this stage, the kidneys are no longer working properly, they are not filtering the blood, so wastes and water builds up on your body, at this stage there are symptoms as follows:
- Loss of appetite
- Weigh fluctuations
- Swelling of knees and ankles
- Nausea
- Weakness
- Itching and strong pain, specially on legs
There are only two treatments for ESRD, a transplant or dialysis. Dialysis is the treatment on which the blood is filtered by the use of an artificial kidney. The types of dialysis are:
Hemodialysis: This is perform by a machine or artificial kidney, can be in-center at a dialysis clinic 3-4 days a week for 3-4 hours, at home 5-6 days a week for 2-3 hours, nocturnal in-center, 5-6 days a week 6-8 hours, while patient is sleeping.
Peritoneal Dialysis: In order to filter your blood, this method uses the lining of your abdomen or the peritoneal membrane.
