Good morning! I found this site while searching for a kidney damage/failure forum on Google a couple of days ago. I decided to join after I discovered there was a section for those of us not quite there yet for dialysis.
My story began in 2011 with a simple blood pressure check. It was right through the roof.. around the 190 mark. My doc chalked it up to white coat syndrome at first, but after the 3rd visit he began to get alarmed and he sent me for my first of many 24hr urine collections.
Despite medications etc, my BP refused to budge, so off to the Internist I go and more labs to do. The very first 24hr collection was brutal.. I had to stop drinking coffee for a week before I could do the collection..
Fast forward to June 6 2012 and I finally got my answer as to what was going on.. I was diagnosed with a rare disorder.. Adrenal Hyperplasia. My adrenal glands were producing too much Aldesterone which in turn caused my BP to spike.
A year ago my kidney function was near 90%.. great!! Anyway I had to undergo many more blood tests to keep an eye on things. This past Feb I had noticed my kidney's were now at 59%!! I'm like what??!! More infuriating was that my Internist didn't think I needed to see a Nephrologist.
Back in May of this year I saw my GP and he had my most recent labs from April and he informed me I had Stage 3 kidney failure and he was sending me off to see a kidney specialist. I used to be a taxi driver and I occasionally I had to take passengers into Hamilton to the dialysis centre and sometimes I had to go inside the unit to get my passengers, and most of what I saw just freaked me right out!
Anyway I'm being tested for Multiple Myeloma and Hepatitis A B C, to see if this is the underlying reason why my kidneys have dropped so quick.