Big question about BUN

[EEsDaddy]

Eathen has issues with his BUN. For about a year and a half before the cast and now that he is out of the cast his BUN skyrockets when he is at home, but lowers at the hospital. The only conclusion we can come up with is his movement and physical activity differ greatly being in the hospital usually reduces activity. I have been looking for research to determine the effects of sustained high BUN and everything I have found is "as soon as high BUN is discovered you need to get on dialysis to pull it back down" (NO CRAP WE HAVE BEEN ON DIALYSIS FOR ALMOST 4 YEARS!!!) I don't want to make my son stay in his bed all the time because that is not fair to him. So I guess my question is does anyone have any experience with similar situations or anything like that?

[Rerun]

What is his BUN Number?  I want to see what you think is "high".

[EEsDaddy]

his is currently 150 and that is where it floats around when he is home it goes down to around the 60s or 70s when he is at the hospital

[monrein]

As I understand it BUN is related to the waste breakdown from food while creatinine measures the waste breakdown of muscles and exercise could affect that.  Could it be that Ethan eats better at home than in the hospital?  Ask your doctor about this and check out this site.

http://www.kidneyschool.org/splash/toc.shtml

[Jill D.]

I was told by my nephrologist, as well as my doctor at Mayo Clinic, that the BUN number is not a good indicator at all for kidney function. In fact, they prefer that it not even be included on lab printouts. For kidney function, creatinine and GFR are the best indicators.

[monrein]

The usefulness of the BUN reading is that you can influence it with diet so it's not a good measure of kidney function but it can be an indication that we need to be more careful about what we're eating at the pre-dialysis stage.