ok, so the transplant story begins...

[Roxy]

Thank you! You just made me feel a whole lot better. I'm a fairly logical person and I will do the biopsy if I think the benefits outweigh the risks. However, at this point I just do not believe that they do. I want to wait at least this week, because yes it has only been two weeks post transplant. I will definitely be chugging water. The one day I made 100% sure to drink more than 2500cc of fluid my creatinine went down. That's another reason that I think the fluid is the only issue. Thank you sooooooooo much for sharing Jenna's experience. It gave me peice of mind that I am being as logical as I think I am about the whole thing.

[Roxy]

So here is a quick update. I moved back to California a couple months ago since things were going well and the doctors said I'm good to go. I am 5mths post transplant and my creatinine has been steady between 1.6 and 2.0 . They expected this since my mom's kidney was really small . The doctors figured that in about a year the creatinine should go down. But it went down this week!!!! My creatinine is finally down to 1.2!  I know it might go back up again, but I'm just soooo excited, because the idea of it staying around 1.7 was bothering me even though they completely expected it. Besides that, I'm going back to work next week and feeling great. We are still adjusting my medications every week, but it looks like it is starting to stabilize.   

[pinkrose]

I would take that as a very good sign! 

[stauffenberg]

Some lucky patients are able to leave the hospital with a kidney transplant that gives them a creatinine value in the normal range, between .7 and 1.2, but many do not.  Since the lifespan of the kidney is a function of the creatinine value at the beginning, given that the creatinine level tends to creep up from the baseline each year until finally it is in the dialysis range again, you have a better prognosis with a lower starting value.  One curious fact that has been recently discovered is that the baseline creatinine level of the new kidney tends to be determined by the creatinine level during dialysis, which raises the interesting question of how the new kidney 'knows' what your pre-transplant level was!  While rejection is a well-known and usually easily treated cause of decline of function in a transplanted kidney, most kidneys today are lost to gradual decline, known as 'chronic allograft nephropathy,' and no one knows what causes this or how to treat it.

When there are high creatinine levels right after the transplant and these are starting to rise, a biopsy is indicated to rule out acute rejection or surgical error as a cause of the problem.  Biopsies themselves do some damage to the kidney, but they are performed when the diagnostic value of the procedure outweighs the slight damage they do to the organ.

[Roxy]

Stauffenberg, the transplant team expects my function to get better within the first year as it has this week. There was much debate upon whether we were going to use my mom's kidney or not since it was a very small kidney. However, since both my mother and I are petite women, it was agreed to use it. Therefore, they expected higher creatinine levels when I came out of the transplant. Then are expecting the creatinine levels to lower. We never did a biopsy for this exact reason. That was debated as well, however since my transplant surgeon knew what the "expected" range for my creatinine was going to be ( between 1.6 - 2.0 ) and it has stayed that way, there has never been a need for a biopsy. As long as my creatinine stays below 2.0 they are leaving well enough alone.

[livecam]

So here is a quick update. I moved back to California a couple months ago since things were going well and the doctors said I'm good to go. I am 5mths post transplant and my creatinine has been steady between 1.6 and 2.0 . They expected this since my mom's kidney was really small . The doctors figured that in about a year the creatinine should go down. But it went down this week!!!! My creatinine is finally down to 1.2!  I know it might go back up again, but I'm just soooo excited, because the idea of it staying around 1.7 was bothering me even though they completely expected it. Besides that, I'm going back to work next week and feeling great. We are still adjusting my medications every week, but it looks like it is starting to stabilize.   

Congratulations Roxy.  It must be a major relief to be down in the good zone.  I would be concerned if I was at 1.6 or higher but even with those numbers the transplant beats dialysis hands down.  Best of luck to you and I hope those numbers fall even further.

[tamara]

Congratulations Roxy