Kidney Failure & Acupuncture

How does natural Chinese medicine work in relation to serious health conditions like stage 3 renal failure?

According to kidneyfailureweb.com, acupuncture can actually improve renal function, even once it gets to stage 3. The author of the article does include the caveat that this should not be considered the only treatment, however. Still, this is good news, if accurate!

I am not certain of the credentials of this site, and am currently on a 'live chat' with them, trying to find out. The person is too busy trying to find out about me to bother answering my question about the site's validity, which is quite bothersome. The "About Us" page simply explains how helpful the site is to users. It is only as useful as it is credible. Still waiting. When I switched pages I lost the first person. Starting over with a new automatic chat.

They are in the US and Australia. There is an option to speak to an 'expert.' I have yet to reach anyone, 10 minutes later. But then again, it is just after 6 a.m. It is an automated pop-up block asking how they can help you. Although I did have a live person, once, asking for my information, before I accidentally lost them by switching pages within their site.

At any rate, the information sounds promising, and the website does look legitimate. I had hoped to find out more information before passing it on to my readers. But you can check it out and discern for yourselves.

In the end, it is really all about how our individual bodies respond to things, anyway, I've realized.

Enjoy this day - rain or shine, windy or still - it is another day to breathe in deeply the wonders of the earth and exhale the worries of yesterday.

IS IT SUICIDE TO STOP OR REFUSE DIALYSIS TREATMENT?

Someone recently posed this question, "Is is suicide to stop dialysis?" and most people I saw that responded did not end up answering the question. As a matter of fact, at last check, only one person had directly answered.

It is a difficult question to read, even for me; I do not know this person, and I have been in his/her shoes, nearly refusing it myself. I cannot imagine being the family member who has not been in our shoes having this discussion with a loved one.

The end-of-life decision is one many people must face, at one time or another, not transplant patients alone. Some people attempt to make future decisions, such as DNRs, or Do Not Resuscitates, in the event that a medical team would deem it necessary otherwise. It's opting out of treatment. Just like choosing not to dialyze, or have a transplant, or have chemotherapy treatments, is opting out.

It is our right to choose. Our right to choose to cease suffering. When the treatments has ceased to work for us. When the treatment becomes more unbearable than letting go of life. I appreciate our right to choose this path. Just like I appreciated Dr. Kevorkian helping people that wanted to move on out of this life, to move on. (I only heard tidbits about him, and this is what I understand - I don't mean to start controversy!)

I heard about a man who lost both of his legs and one of his arms due to his long duration of dialysis treatments while awaiting a kidney transplant. He finally decided to discontinue diaylsis, knowing full well the outcome. It had become unbearable, despite having his grown son and grandchild to live for. He was only 40 when he passed away.

Next time you hear someone posing this question (that is in the U.S.).... if it comes down to a time that s/he makes a decision not to have treatment... the silver lining, or tension reliever, for this person or the family is that, apparently, Medicare covers home care for this. I, for one, am very much relieved. Finances are just one thing my husband has to handle completely because it is just one more stressful thing on my plate that causes me to have a meltdown.

I just hope that it helps someone out there, should it come down to this.

http://kidneyfoundation.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/are-there-home-care-or-palliative-care-options-for-someone-with-esrd-who-wont-consent-to-dialysis/

Can the un-insured get kidney transplants? YES!

Refute to article

English: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services – Medicare & You 2010, official government handbook. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While the Ethics of Organ Transplants article on About.com may be interesting, it does have one (at least) glaringly false statement! I’ve never been a big fan of the site anyway. And, really? I have to register with it to comment on Austin Cline’s article? C’mon. And I’m not giving out my email address just to correct some guy whose focus is on atheism and agnosticism anyway (ie; he doesn’t really care about organ donation).
Since I cannot comment (the easy way!), I will address it here. After all, some of you might have the same argument, or might have heard the same issue, and I want you to know that Cline’s argument is JUST NOT TRUE. He claims that, Overall, transplants are a procedure for people with lots of money or lots of insurance.
Listen to me carefully, especially if you or someone you know is need of a transplant: these procedures are NOT just for people with lots of money or lots of insurance. Not at all. My first transplant was covered by my dad’s insurance, yes.  I don’t know if he had good insurance. I know they made us jump through hoops to get it and to do the follow-up visits and I will never personally carry that particular one.
My 2nd one was covered by a combination of my husband’s insurance, Medicare, and the hospital’s kidney foundation/thing-a-ma-jigger/deal. No, I am not of retirement age and that was not a typo – Medicare actually has special clauses for various extenuating circumstances. ERSD is one of them. My 3rd transplant was covered by Medicare, the hospital’s kidney foundation thingy and outside funding/granting agencies due to extenuating circumstances.
Poor people CAN and DO have transplants, all the time. Ask a social worker or a member of your transplant team or your doctor for guidance. They are your first resource and can help!

Related articles

• Save Lives Now – Extend Kidney Anti-Rejection Drug Coverage (bobsnewheart.wordpress.com)
• Darmstadt woman finally cleared for kidney transplant (courierpress.com)
• Altruism Isn’t Working – Should We Be Able to Buy Organs? (bobsnewheart.wordpress.com)
• Financial Help for RA Treatment (everydayhealth.com)
• HCI’s bone marrow transplant unit is newest in Utah (fox13now.com)

Is Avoiding Kidney Transplantation Possible?

Yes, even chronic kidney disease (CKD) can go into remission, or be reversed, according to some personal stories I have come across here and there, if caught early enough. Based on those stories (and I cannot back them up or verify them), I want to share something with you, my faithful readers.

According to the article below, you should get your kidney health checked every YEAR. And by ‘you’ I mean the average Joe, not people like me, with CKD, or chronic kidney disease.

Kidney disease creeps up on you like a spider quietly coming down its web from above. This disease is scarier, though, because it attacks from the inside where you can’t see it coming. So you must do your part to try to look for the tiny hints that might appear – if you are lucky enough to have any hints – and to do your part to try to stay healthy despite the environmental, biological, physical, psychological and emotional hazards we face daily.

Read on to discover what types of supplements can help, and if I remember correctly, what may hinder (keeping the article to refer back to for future reference!). I have some excerpts below, for you, but for detailed information, please take some time to peruse the entire article. It mentions CoQ10 and others you may have heard of before.

*Keep in mind that if you already have CKD check with your doctor before even considering taking any of these supplements!!*

Thank you to Carl Bullen from the Kidney Transplant Donors and Recipients Facebook page for sharing this with us!

Copyright Notice

© Christina D. George and The Treasure Trove, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Christina D. George and The Treasure Trove with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Innovative Strategies to Combat Kidney Disease

Key points in the article:

What You Need to Know: Strategies to Combat Kidney Disease

• It is imperative that aging individuals receive regular blood tests to monitor kidney health. In addition to standard creatinine, albumin, and BUN/creatinine ratio testing, cystatin-C levels should also be measured, as this constitutes a far more accurate biomarker of renal function.
• The high-pressure and toxin-rich environment involved in renal function renders these delicate, highly complex organs especially vulnerable to damage, dysfunction, and disease.
• High blood pressure, elevated blood sugar¸ NSAIDs, certain medications, and high-protein diets are the most common threats to kidney health.
• Nutrients such as pyridoxal-5-phosphate (P5P) fight AGEs and ALEs.
• CoQ10, silymarin, resveratrol, and lipoic acid are also clinically supported, potent interventions.
• Omega-3 fatty acids help quell inflammation, contributing to enhanced kidney health.
• A host of additional nutrients complement these actions, including folic acid (folate) and vitamins C and E.

Understanding Kidney Disease
The kidney ranks among the most complex and delicately evolved of all the major organs, making it particularly vulnerable to damage and dysfunction. As the body’s primary filtration system, it must “process” roughly 200 quarts of blood per day, rendering about 2 quarts of waste products and water.29

The fundamental structural unit of the kidney is the nephron. These high-pressure filtering mechanisms govern the removal of waste products and toxins, control blood pressure and volume, and regulate levels of electrolytes and metabolites in the blood. A healthy kidney contains approximately 800,000 to 1 million nephrons.

Housed within each nephron is a front-line filtration element called the glomerulus, a miniscule capillary coil. (The two together resemble an incandescent light bulb containing a convoluted filament.) The endothelial cells of the glomerulic capillaries act as the direct physical exchange between the kidney and the bloodstream. Waste products and water are combined to form urine, while blood cells and protein remain in the circulatory system.

The kidney’s tight control of water and mineral flow, and its role in maintaining healthy blood pressure and mineral balance, rely on the optimal functioning of nephrons and glomeruli. For this reason, one of the primary markers of kidney function is the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), a measure of the volume of fluid the kidney is able to process at any given time.

The glomerular filtration rate; plasma concentrations of the waste substances creatinine, urea, and nitrogen (blood urea nitrogen or BUN); and levels of protein in the blood and urine are the most commonly used measures to determine the presence of CKD. Rapidly rising creatinine usually signals imminent kidney failure. There should be no protein in the urine if your kidneys are functioning optimally.

It should be noted that BUN and creatinine may not increase above the normal range until 60% of total kidney function is lost. This is why certain aging individuals should ask their doctors to test for cystatin-C in the blood. Cystatin-C is a protein produced by virtually all cells and tissues in the body. Because it is formed freely and at a near-constant rate—as opposed to albumin, which may fluctuate with dietary protein intake—plasma cystatin-C serves as a more accurate biomarker of renal function.30

CKD may be categorized in one of 5 stages. Stage 1, the mildest, is defined only by the persistent presence of protein in urine (GFR may be normal); in each successively higher stage, GFR declines, until Stage 5 is reached, defining end-stage renal disease (ESRD), or kidney failure.31 ESRD is irreversible and results in death without dialysis or kidney transplant.32

Risks to Kidney Health

Given the toxic, high-pressure conditions involved in renal function and the delicacy of the kidney’s structural components, it comes as no surprise that an array of near-constant internal and external insults may take a severe toll on the glomeruli and other parts of the kidney. Their incremental damage and destruction leads to the progressive decline in renal function seen in aging humans.

These internal and external insults include:

• Hypertension. Over time, chronic high blood pressure inflicts damage to the endothelial cells lining the kidney’s blood vessels, including those within the glomeruli. The result is a familiar cascade of events that leads to the thickening of blood vessel walls and reduction in blood flow seen in atherosclerosis. Reduced blood flow is in turn directly translated into lower GFR. Pressure damage to the glomeruli also diminishes their filtration capacity, permitting large protein molecules such as albumin to pass into urine instead of remaining in circulation. (This is why urine albumin levels are used to detect kidney disease.)
• Elevated serum glucose. Diabetes is now the leading cause of CKD.61 Experts predict even greater increases in CKD if rates of diabetes incidence continue to rise steeply.62 It should be noted, however, that high blood sugar poses a threat to kidney health even in non-diabetic individuals. Chronic exposure to glucose degrades and destroys kidney cells through the formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs)—molecules generated through the pathologic binding of glucose to proteins in the body. AGEs cause primary structural proteins in the cells to cross-link and become non-functional, increasing oxidative stress, inflammation, and directly damaging kidney tissue.63-66 It has been established that even early-stage insulin resistance is associated with CKD.67
• Excess fatty tissue. Body fat contributes to the development of CKD through production of inflammatory cytokines specific to adipose (fatty) tissue called adipokines. Along with AGEs and oxidative stress, adipokines exacerbate the inflammation commonly found in people with CKD.67 For this reason, metabolic syndrome—co-occurring insulin resistance, hypertension, and abdominal obesity—represents a perfect storm for the development of CKD. A 2007 study found that metabolic syndrome occurs in 30.5% of individuals with stage 4 or stage 5 chronic kidney disease.68 Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of chronic kidney disease, even before diabetes manifests.69
• Protein over-consumption. Ingesting an excessive amount of protein, particularly meat, may tax the kidneys to the point of distress. The extraordinary increase in individuals adhering misguidedly to high-protein diets in order to lose weight has had the unintended consequence of boosting rates of kidney damage and disease. Meat consumption also results in high AGE production and the consequent inflammatory injury to kidney tissue.69 A prudent approach to dietary protein is thus encouraged by most experts, particularly in people who already have some degree of CKD.
• Drugs. The nephrotoxic side effects of many commonly used medications comprise another significant causative factor in CKD. Chief among the mechanisms by which drugs cause kidney damage are oxidative stress and adverse alterations in cellular energy management. So-called “analgesic nephropathy” involves destruction of the active regions of the kidney by overuse of pain relievers, usually used in combinations of two or more, including the common over-the-counter medication acetaminophen (Tylenol®) as well as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (NSAIDs) including high-dose aspirin, and ibuprofen (Advil®, Motrin®).70-73 Chemotherapy agents have also been shown to significantly impair renal function.74,75 Please note that acetaminophen inflicts kidney damage via a different mechanism than pain relieving drugs like ibuprofen.

from http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2010/may2010_Innovative-Strategies-to-Combat-Kidney-Disease_03.htm By Julius Goepp, MD