#kidneydiseaseawareness Archives - All Things Kidney ~ Official

Ensuring Hygiene in a Kidney-friendly Kitchen

February 12, 2020May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Hygiene is an important consideration for everything that enters your body, whether you eat it, drink it, breathe it or inject it. This is more so if a major, essential organ of the body like your kidneys are unwell. That’s because, in normal health, kidneys efficiently eliminate ALL excess metabolic wastes and impurities in blood via urine. But Chronic Kidney Disease progressively diminishes this blood-cleansing ability of kidneys as well as blunts our body’s immune defences with time.

💡 So what are the best practices to keep your kidney kitchen hygienic?

💡 Which are the must-have equipment/utility items that you should consider stocking-up your kitchen with, to turn it into a “Kidney-Fortress”?

These are what this article has discussed today. Continue reading “Ensuring Hygiene in a Kidney-friendly Kitchen” →

Kidney-Friendly Kitchen: The must-have tools!

February 5, 2020March 22, 2021Leave a comment

Kidney friendly

What business does someone trained as a physician-scientist have, talking about “Tools necessary for a Kidney-friendly kitchen”, you may ask?

Well, it’s my own decade-long Experience navigating life as a Kidney Warrior (currently post-kidney transplant) and the frustrating lack of organized information on this matter in the medical literature or public domain, that has motivated me to help fellow members in the Kidney Community in this regard.

As soon as you are diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease, dietary modifications take the centre-stage Continue reading “Kidney-Friendly Kitchen: The must-have tools!” →

Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR)

November 8, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

If you are a member of the kidney community – whether as a patient, caregiver, advocate or knowledge seeker – it is likely that you have come across the term “Glomerular Filtration Rate” or more commonly, the GFR. Perhaps you are also aware that this term broadly relates to your kidney’s functional capacity.

But do you completely understand what GFR really is?

How does your medical team clinically assess the GFR for your kidneys?

How valid is it throughout your CKD journey?

And is it always indicative of the true health status of your kidneys?

All these are some very pertinent questions that each member of the Kidney Community, especially the patients & caregivers must thoroughly know the answers to. And that is exactly what we are here to help you with, today. Continue reading “Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR)” →

Breathing Difficulty in Kidney Disease

August 11, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Breathing Difficulty in Chronic Kidney Disease is an inevitable accompaniment in advanced stages. But why does CKD make you breathless in the first place? Learn here.

The other day, some of us at Team ATK just sat reflecting on our pre-transplant days with Kidney Failure. And we all concurred on the helplessness we felt about that relentless “out-of-breath” sensation even at the slightest exertion. In fact, right after transplant, this was one of the first positive changes that I remember as uplifting my quality of life. I could breathe fully, freely & effortlessly again!

So, what is this “breathlessness” or as the fancy medical terminology would have it, “Dyspnoea” (pronounced as “disp-neah”) in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) all about? Continue reading “Breathing Difficulty in Kidney Disease” →

Muscle Wasting in CKD: Treatment

July 8, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Muscle wasting & pain is a common complication reported in most patients with Chronic Kidney Disease, worldwide. Speaking from personal experience, this is also one of those “visibly apparent” physical changes in the course of CKD, which can have a negative impact on our already complicated quality of life.

So, can you prevent this from happening? Well, that’s the million-dollar (research) question, isn’t it?

In our previous article in this category, we covered the whole bunch of causes that conspire together in CKD to make your muscles gradually “lose themselves” over time. Fortunately, medical research has offered us effective solutions to keep muscle wasting in CKD at bay for as long as possible. In addition, some approaches can also partially restore muscle bulk and strength after muscle wasting has already started.

Let’s explore these treatments then, shall we?

Continue reading “Muscle Wasting in CKD: Treatment” →

Muscle Pain & Wasting in CKD

June 20, 2019May 21, 20212 Comments

Muscle Pain

Muscle Pain & wasting (shrivelling) is a constant, debilitating & rather frustrating accompaniment during your CKD journey, in the advanced stages. It is only but one of the many myriad “complaints” arising from across multiple organs — something that’s a part & parcel of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

Previously, Team ATK has simplified the concepts of “Protein in Urine“, “Blood in Urine“, “Anemia” & “Bone Pain“, in the context of CKD.

Adding to this list, today we seek to cover the significance of skeletal muscles in kidney disease and explain why muscles begin to “lose themselves” when we enter the great abyss of Chronic Kidney Disease!

But first things first. Continue reading “Muscle Pain & Wasting in CKD” →

Bone Pain vs Muscle Pain in CKD

June 20, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Bone Pain Muscle Pain

Pain as a sensation, wherever it might arise from, is solely felt because nerves present in that region relay it to our brain and back. This is a “protective reflex”, Continue reading “Bone Pain vs Muscle Pain in CKD” →

Bone Pain in CKD: Treatment

June 3, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Bone pain is an inevitable consequence of advanced Chronic Kidney Disease. Our previous article explained why this is the case. We elucidated on the “crosstalk” that exists between kidneys and bones in normal health, and how their “relationship turns painful” when Chronic Kidney Disease hits!

This article serves to cover the treatment principles that help make that debilitating pain go away, literally by acting as “relationship counsellors” for the Kidney & Bones.

Let’s get started then, shall we? Continue reading “Bone Pain in CKD: Treatment” →

Bone Pain in Chronic Kidney Disease

May 28, 2019May 21, 2021Leave a comment

Most members of Club CKD are well-acquainted with that debilitating knee or lower back pain which intensifies as kidney failure approaches.

Your medical team gets your bloodwork done & may be able to relate this pain to desperately low levels of Vitamin D!
(provided you don’t already have a separate bone or nerve condition)

But we’re talking about Chronic Kidney Disease, right? What does Vitamin D have anything to do with it? And how does that cause you bone pain? Let us try & dissect this topic, shall we? Continue reading “Bone Pain in Chronic Kidney Disease” →

Alcohol and Kidney Disease

November 8, 2018May 22, 2021Leave a comment

Alcohol is a part of the lives of a big chunk of the general population, whether as an occasional, moderate or frequent consumer or perhaps, a binge drinker. Unfortunately, it is also an established, major cause of kidney damage when continued unchecked, in the long term.

Continue reading “Alcohol and Kidney Disease” →