Do You Have Kidney Disease? Question:

[TOBEY32]

Do you take sodium bicarbonate (1 tsp. baking soda) as a daily supplement (in water)? Someone at church mentioned he was told by his doc to do this each day. He says he had been diagnosed w/ stage-4, and has had no further problems.
I have started (1/2 tsp.), though my doc's nurse says my sod. bic. is always within range on my tests. Still gonna do it for now, as she didn't say I couldn't still. Maybe this gentleman's sod. bic. test are not within range, and that would be the only reason a person would need to do this. But I've read some other stuff that confirms its "powers".
Just curious.

David

[drz]

Do you take sodium bicarbonate (1 tsp. baking soda) as a daily supplement (in water)? Someone at church mentioned he was told by his doc to do this each day. He says he had been diagnosed w/ stage-4, and has had no further problems.
I have started (1/2 tsp.), though my doc's nurse says my sod. bic. is always within range on my tests. Still gonna do it for now, as she didn't say I couldn't still. Maybe this gentleman's sod. bic. test are not within range, and that would be the only reason a person would need to do this. But I've read some other stuff that confirms its "powers".
Just curious.
David

I was diagnosed with deficient kidney function years ago due to diabetes which got worse with age as kidney function normally declines with age. The Wegs hit my kidneys hard so doctors have closely monitored my kidney function since Wegs, but no doctor has suggested adding soda bicarbonate to my many meds I take. I can ask some of them about it. I do use baking soda daily as part of my solution for nasal rinse which is one part baking soda and three parts salt mixed in warm water.

[mishb]

I've never heard of taking it that way.
The way I usually take it, is in a cake or two, or three
Sorry.

Actually, I tend to never listen to people that tell me that all I need to take is this or that, and then I will feel better.
Surely it's not that easy. Maybe I should be listening

I hope it works for you David

[JeanMarie]

I have kidney involvement. When I was on cytoxin & drinking a lot of water my sodium levels went down. My kidney doc immediately called & said substitute some of that water with gatoraid. Levels went back to normal & I've had no problems since. I would verify with your doctor before making any changes.

[TOBEY32]

I agree consulting w/ doc is important, and at the same time if they're strong medical docs (not much on alternatives, supplements, etc.) they can so often automatically "poo-poo" such things...

[gilders]

I am currently being prepared for dialysis or, hopefully, transplant before dialysis. I am trying everything to get my kidneys to hold out long enough so that I can get the transplant pre-dialysis. You can "trick" blood and urine tests to make it look like a diet change is helping, but in reality your function is just the same. For example, you can cut out protein from your diet and then it looks like protein isn't leaking from your kidneys, but it's just a false reading as you didn't eat any protein to begin with. Having severe kidney disease/failure can only be helped by diet by cutting out sodium/salt as it is high blood pressure which damages kidneys.
You may need diet and med changes because of kidney failure, but this is to compensate for the changes of your body's biochemistry due to kidney failure, rather than to protect/repair kidneys.

[drz]

I am currently being prepared for dialysis or, hopefully, transplant before dialysis. I am trying everything to get my kidneys to hold out long enough so that I can get the transplant pre-dialysis. You can "trick" blood and urine tests to make it look like a diet change is helping, but in reality your function is just the same. For example, you can cut out protein from your diet and then it looks like protein isn't leaking from your kidneys, but it's just a false reading as you didn't eat any protein to begin with. Having severe kidney disease/failure can only be helped by diet by cutting out sodium/salt as it is high blood pressure which damages kidneys.
You may need diet and med changes because of kidney failure, but this is to compensate for the changes of your body's biochemistry due to kidney failure, rather than to protect/repair kidneys.

Years ago when when kidney failure was just beginning the doctors told me to try keep my BP as low as possible so i kept it around 90/60. A few years later after getting Wegs my new kidney doctor told me that info has changed and it is better to keep it around 120/80 so I have cut back on my BP meds to get it up higher. What do your doctors say about BP?

[gilders]

Years ago when when kidney failure was just beginning the doctors told me to try keep my BP as low as possible so i kept it around 90/60. A few years later after getting Wegs my new kidney doctor told me that info has changed and it is better to keep it around 120/80 so I have cut back on my BP meds to get it up higher. What do your doctors say about BP?

Things do indeed change and sometimes Drs forget to tell you the new info, so you're lucky your Dr did. I was originally told (20 years ago) to strictly restrict my protein intake. It wasn't long before I started to eat more protein and when I admitted this to my Dr he said that it was old criteria to restrict protein, but if I hadn't have brought it up with him and stuck to the low protein diet, I would have been damaging my health.
As for BP, I am advised to have it as near perfect as possible (i.e. not low) so 120/80 would be good.
I'm really struggling with my BP. It's a vicious circle. Poor kidney function increases BP and high BP causes poor kidney function.
Last week I had to do a stress test for my cardiologist (walk, jog on treadmill). I had to wait for ages as my BP was too high to begin the test (180/110). This was even high for me (usually 140/90), but after chatting about my recent vacation to Portugal, my BP dropped to a safe level. I think I was extra stressed as I know that I can only be considered to go through transplant if my heart tests are good enough.