Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Answering a Question

Well, my last blog post was on September 13. It seems that I also received an e-mail question that day from one of my faithful few readers. I apologize for it taking me SOO long to get to your question, but I thought I would answer it here for all to enjoy:

Hi Nathan,
I have been on your blog list for a time now. I don't know if you have time to answer a question for me, and if you don't that's okay! I am a 53 year old woman, and I have PKD. It was diagnosed last year after I was having chest pains. They found it in the scan that they did. After that I have had numerous tests, but it boils down to just taking blood pressure medicine for now! My question is about eating protein. My doctor says don't eat too much protein and mostly chicken (OR, rather not much red meat). However, do you know if it just about the quantities going through the kidneys....and that maybe I could eat more if I string it out over time? Yes, I know I can ask my doctor, but I would also like to see what someone else's experience is! I have found your blog very encouraging Nathan. And, I have been praying for you too! You have been through so much with this disease, and I think you are doing so great. And, I like that you are keeping up living your life!
God bless,
Cindy

Well, Cindy, I am glad that you asked. I try to take time to answer all the questions that I receive, and if the sender doesn't say otherwise, then I try to answer it on the blog so that the other readers can benefit from my "wisdom" of sorts.

Like you, my doctors also advised that I cut down on the protein while I was working my way toward kidney failure. I found that your best bet is to eat as little red meat as possible. If you do eat some, then you should string it out over time. You don't want to have steak and eggs for breakfast, a juicy cheeseburger for lunch, and meatloaf for dinner. If you have steak and eggs for breakfast, then don't eat any more red meat that day.

If you really enjoy your red meats, then I would recommend (just me, I am not a doctor) staying to no more than one serving per day. That will give your kidneys less to process, which should, in theory, allow them to function longer.

Thank you for your prayers and for being a faithful reader. I will try to be a bit better about answering questions that I get to my blog posts. In fact, I'll probably do another question this week, if I get some more time to do it.

Oh, wait, in other news, I got my 24-hour urine results last week. It seems that my creatinine clearance is still over 100, which is wonderful. I guess the variance in my Glofil results is just a variance which should not concern me.

Thanks for coming by to read today. Hope it was informative and helpful to anyone wanting to eat more chicken. See you next time.

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