Diet and kidney transplants

[natnnnat]

I guess this might be stating the obvious but anyway.

As I have been squeaking about in other threads, husband Gregory is in hospital, more or less recovered from a rare form of pneumonia called PCP.  At the same time his creatnine spiked to 518 (in the US this would be called 5.9 I think?) and seems to be hovering at the 500 level... and his calcium peaked at 3.6.  They think he has lumps in his thyroid, so they have been measuring and testing him in so many ways that he is now utterly sick of every form of inspection "-)

The other day one of the renal registrars said his function is about 30%.  I wonder if this is a reference to GFR.  He is skinny as a bag of bones but hospital food is truly dire, so getting him to eat is a real problem.  I live 40min drive from hospital and so far he has only expressed interest in junk food (chocolate bars, sausage rolls)... I think maybe some kind of dietary advice (for me at least!) might be good. 

Attention to diet would be relevant at this point wouldn't it?  I don't want to start rattling doors about diet if its not really relevant, as Gregory is sick of the whole thing at present and has a tendency to tell me to "leave it alone".

[okarol]

I am sorry to hear this! I hope things improve. I hope someone will post something, I am unsure what to do. But here's a big HUG for you anyway. 

[cariad]

I can only give you generalisations because I never really followed a pre-dialysis diet. I think if his GFR were at 30, it would still be awfully premature to begin a pre-dialysis diet, but I do know that the crux of the regimen is low protein.

Honestly, Nat, it sounds like he has lost a dangerous amount of weight, and now is probably not the best time to worry too much about diet. If he thinks he can eat it, I would encourage him (unless the doctors say otherwise). Sure, the more good quality nutrition he can get the better, but I would probably get him the sausage roll for now. Maybe he could tolerate a bit of fruit? (Non-Americans never seem to know what applesauce is, which is a shame. Very easy to tolerate and is sold by the tonne over here.)

I know with the viral meningitis, I lost about 20lbs in ten days. I kept going to see doctors and they kept telling me to just eat, eat anything I could. My GFR would have been under 20 at that point. I could barely walk for a month after the fact, and struggled to eat anything for months. Every time I sat down to eat, I just wanted to cry and told Gwyn repeatedly that I would much rather be sleeping. He would tell me to go to bed, but I usually felt too guilty as we had two kids, and the one needed constant attention being little more than a baby at the time. My first food after the meningitis was cream of rice, essentially baby food. I had it with butter and sugar. It was all I could think that I might be able to eat, and Gwyn literally had to spoon it into my mouth as I could not sit up. No nutritional value whatsoever, but I was scared I was going to die if I did not manage to eat. The nutritionally-conscious food came back into my life maybe a week or two later. Could he drink some of those nutritional shakes if he's in the mood for chocolate? I am sure he has lost a lot of lean muscle and likely should not attempt low protein now. Perhaps someone else will have more confident advice as I really do not know what diet would be best for his recovery. Good luck, and so relieved to hear how much better he is doing.

[natnnnat]

Your answers here and on the other thread are a real comfort cariad.  Even though what happens to one person may not happen to another, nonetheless you and Chris have been through a lot of this and your kidneys carried on carrying on.    I got a handful of prawns and a chocolate bar into him tonight.