Chinese Herbs -- I hope this isn't a faux pax to post here.

[cocorenee]

Hello! I recently returned from 3 months in Southeast Asia where I met a woman who cured her own blindness and put her MS in to "remission" using Chinese Medicine; primarily Chinese herbs. Has anyone here tried Chinese herbs to increase kidney function. I started googling, but all I get are links to nephs in China and I can't afford to go to China right now. I am studying Ayurveda as well, but am really interested to hear any Chinese medicine success stories or tips of where to start. Please no negative comments. Thank you!

[noahvale]

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[obsidianom]

There is a reputable company in the US manufacturing Chinese meds, WEI labs. They have 2 PHDs running the company and they also trained at Harvard andin Boston hospitals. Their products are useful as I have had luck with them for certain conditions . Their pain patches work well. Unfortunatly their other "meds" dont seem to work as well, at least from my experience. I tried some of their liquids on my wife for her kidneys and it never helped. Thier UTI liquid for bladder inflammation did help some.
I tied to get the company to do some double blind scientific studies on some of their products. They didnt seem interested. But they are reputable and at least have some useful products. I beleive some professional athletic teams use their patches.   I used them on my knees with good success.
They probably cant help kidney disease . I wish they could  . Their meds are also very expensive.
Be careful with most other Chinese meds.

[bansix]

A couple years ago I start this regiment found at Dherbs.com http://dherbs.com/news/4636/4669/Dialysis/d,ai.html#.Uxs3nD9dWSp
Its a combination of herbs and juicing. I got lazy with cleaning the the juicer and a week turned into a month and 2 years later I'm finally starting it back up.
At the time I was making no urine, but with each treatment I was making a few drops more each day, which turned into streams, and a couple times a day. I was going through a lot still with my life, so I had to put it to the side, but I believe if I kept with it I may be ESRD free now.
I've most currently been doing a combination of herbs, diet, and ginger massage. I am going full force trying several things at once because I decided get off the transplant list, I knew it wouldn't work for me. and beside I believe healing naturally is possible.
So I've been doing the herbs from the link above.
As for diet, I'm not doing the juicing anymore, i'm doing a smoothie similar to what you see in the nutribullet infomercials. Mostly organic veggies and a little fruit to make it a little more palatable.
I still use celery juice in each smoothie because that is the best ingredient to wake up your kidney. I use fruits that are lower in potassium just so I don't get into trouble with the Neph. Like pineapple instead of Bananas. 

Here's the massage I was talking about. Ginger Massage Therapy for Kidney failure: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsg0kS-0pQ
that video seems to be a do-it-yourself version of "Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JETVKmnkx8M
If it was a sure thing I would just go to china, but that is a big investment, and who knows how long it would take, would I have to quit my job to go there?

I want to incorporate exercise and I do walk quite a bit everyday, but I can't do anything strenuous yet because I'll just get drained really fast.

I had to take a break because I caught the flu from a coworker last weekend. But I am starting it back up tonight. But I went from no urination to being able to make enough urine for me to want to go pee 2 or 3 times a day now. Everyday I see a little progress, it's small to notice, but it is progress.
I've only been doing this for 3 weeks. The weekends I actually still eat regular food. But I may go full force and totally just do the smoothies.

[amanda100wilson]

ban six, your kidneys may be 'asleep and need waking up', but for most of us, the nephrons are gone.  No amount of chines herbs, medicines or smoothies, will undo the damage and restore the structure of these damaged units.  Nice it that were the case, but it ain't.

[obsidianom]

ban six, your kidneys may be 'asleep and need waking up', but for most of us, the nephrons are gone.  No amount of chines herbs, medicines or smoothies, will undo the damage and restore the structure of these damaged units.  Nice it that were the case, but it ain't.

Touche!-

[Alex C.]

Only a damn fool would trust advice from some idiot spammer on the internet over their own nephrologist.

[bansix]

If anyone healed naturally then they would go out of business. So of course they want you to believe that.

[amanda100wilson]

Who wold go out of business and what do they want is to believe?

[kristina]

I am not negative, I am not at all negative, because I am in a pre-dialysis situation myself
...and it is so easy to cling to any hopeful idea to keep off dialysis... for as long as possible...whether it is Chinese herbs or European herbs...
or   whether it is anything else...
...problem is though, there are so many different ideas of how to keep off dialysis...
....for as long as possible... with all sorts of promises etc....
... but there is no real honest way to avoid dialysis in the long run...
...and it is much better to face dialysis to really create a chance... a real chance...
and feel better as soon as our body gets used to dialysing regularly...
... because it creates a real chance for us to get feeling better soon...

[Alex C.]

Seriously, if "Chinese herbs" were any better at treating kidney problems than, say, "North American herbs" were, then why isn't there a lower instance of kidney problems in China?
What's happening here is that you people WANT to believe that some miracle is possible, and the scam-artists are taking advantage of your gullibility.

[Sugarlump]

I watched a programme on tv a while ago about a woman diagnosed with cancer.
She believed if she followed a regime of juicing organic fruit and vegetables daily she would be cured.
She spent a fortune on a juicer and the organic fruit and veggies...
Yes it gave her hope (which I don't underestimate the need for) but
sadly she died a few months later.

I have four kidneys, two native ones, badly scarred and shrunk with glomerulonephritus and two transplanted ones,
which both ceased to work. I have a tiny amount of hormone production and a tiny amount of urine. If I truly believed
drinking celery and parsley smoothies everyday would improve things I would but I think it would be foolish to
believe it could reverse any of these factors ... sadly

[ianch]

Dialysis was hard when i had no control and my life was being ruined by in-centre short hours.  However now I'm having a great time.  Yes its a significant inconvenience at times but I'm better at my job now that i do 160hrs per month, and how many dialysis patients can rock up to a bank and ask for 1m to build a house.  I have more professional success as a dialysis patient than previously and I wasn't sick until I was told to go to hospital as function was at 4%.  One day at work the next in hospital with a tunnel line.  Its been a long hard journey but im succeeding.  Maybe the thought of not being around changes a person.  Im in no hurry for a transplant as I'm exceeding world best practice so I'll be around for 30+ years regardless.       Might look to get a new kidney when my daughter gets a bit older.

[talker]

Not going to go deep into this here, so will just chime in with:

At one point in medical history, it was believed that any brain damage, was permanent, with no type of recovery.
Seems that now, with more sophisticated equipment, the bodies recovery functions continue to amaze the scientific community.

The brain creates new pathways when not severely damaged.
The heart develops new pathways, when certain veins to the heart are clogged.

Not all Chinese herbs are dangerous.
Over indulge on any herb (or food) will demand a a detrimental down period of good health.

During devastating periods of floods, earthquakes, in some counties, a product (aminophylline) was used in place of dialysis.

There are a few more goodies, so the bottom line would be:
don't give up hope,
                          expect a miracle, 
                                                 pray as if you were going to die the next moment in time,
                                                                                                                                 but live life as if you were going to live forever.

Be Well
talker

[Sugarlump]

I prefer Live each day as if it's your last school of thought ...

But pray tell what is aminophyline and how does it work?

[talker]

I prefer Live each day as if it's your last school of thought ...

But pray tell what is aminophyline and how does it work?

Not able to fully answer the questions.
The information came to me via my children , they being aware I was looking for info of this type.
Aminophylline was dated back in March of 2012, as being used on Turkish crush victims and in China, 2008, for earthquake victims.
Patent # 6998404, by GendMed. Was actually a bronchitis, lungs related drug originally, and some how was found to assist with those in need of dialysis.
Not able to verify those events or the drug for dialysis use. Info here in the US, seems all negative on it's use for dialysis.
I mention it only to keep the fires stoked in case some one, some where, finds it of value.
talker

[Athena]

Not going to go deep into this here, so will just chime in with:

At one point in medical history, it was believed that any brain damage, was permanent, with no type of recovery.
Seems that now, with more sophisticated equipment, the bodies recovery functions continue to amaze the scientific community.

The brain creates new pathways when not severely damaged.
The heart develops new pathways, when certain veins to the heart are clogged.


talker

I also draw inspiration from knowing that about heart disease & brain damage, to be quite honest.

[PaulBC]

I also draw inspiration from knowing that about heart disease & brain damage, to be quite honest.

Sorry if this comes across as negative. It's just how I think about this:

One of the first things my daughter's nephrologists explained to me was that nephrons, once scarred, do not heal themselves. I agree that there is a tempting analogy with all the other things I learned were non-regenerating, like brain cells. However, science still suggests that none of these things regenerate well enough to count on as a cure. Things aren't as cut and dry as once believed, but brain cells do not regenerate very much.

For certain kinds of illnesses, the best cure is to let the body heal itself, and there are some traditional cures that help (many others are placebos or harmful). That depends strongly on the body's capacity for self-repair, and sometimes that capacity is absent. Modern medicine often saves lives that were simply lost in the past.

Even the most ardent herbalist wouldn't expect to take herbs to grow back a severed fingertip. That's because something very visible has been removed and we can see that it does not grow back. It's also true despite the component cells all being very capable of regenerating. They still won't grow back into the require structure, which forms once during embryonic development. Nephrons, though microscopic and hidden from view, are also very complex structures. They might be able to recover from minor damage (not sure), but once scarred, new ones do not grow. Why? Well, nature gets a lot of things right on average, and kidney disease is infrequent enough that it somehow missed the cut for developing self-healing. To make progress, we have to go beyond what nature has given us.

Naturally, I'd be elated to find my bleak assessment above turn out to be completely wrong, but for now, I have to go with what seems to be the best scientific understanding and clinical practice.

[Charlie B53]

I seriously doubt there is any treatment that will restore scarred tissue to its original state.

However, it may be possible for some measurable improvement of function.  How?  We don't know, yet.

I do believe that with proper treatment we may be able to slow, and in some cases actually stop the progression of the deterioration of the kidneys.

But we still have a lot to learn.  I will agree that diet can be a major factor HOWEVER, we must always remember the old adage "All things in moderation."  Over-dosing with anything, may not be a good thing.  Just because herbs are organic does not mean that consumption of large amounts are good for us.

Herbal treatment should always be approached with a certain amount of caution as each of us are slightly different.  What may be tolerated well by one may cause severe side-effects to another.  As with some meds the beginning dose is small and has an increasing schedule so the body can acclimatize to the element.

Take Care,

Charlie B

[kristina]

I agree with Charlie, that there is still such a lot to learn about how to keep pre-dialysis for as long as possible...
... and ... what works perfectly for one person might not even be appropriate for another person...
... For example, my carefully worked-out kidney-friendly-vegetarian-diet served me extremely well for over 43 years to keep me off dialysis ...
... but that does not necessarily mean, that it is the right way forward for anyone else to keep pre-dialysis for 43 years as well ...
... Another point is, that it also could be, that during those 43 years whilst keeping myself successfully pre-dialysis ,
I also avoided to drink any alcohol throughout all those years and I also avoided to take any pain-killers (this is really true !!!)
and I made absolutely sure that I kept my kidneys cosy-warm and well protected from any draft at all times...
I even researched about the medical benefits of wearing Continental Angora-kidney-warmers and after finishing my research,
I began to wear one of those Angora-kidney-warmers directly over my kidney-region for over 43 years at all times ...
and I shall continue to always wear one of them at all times ... even though I have started dialysis on 13th December 2014 ...
... but I still believe these Angora-kidney-warmers have protected my kidneys very well in the past
and I do hope they continue to assist what is left of my kidney-function in the future as well ...
... and there is no doubt that I shall continue wearing them after my kidney-transplant...
... And for that reason I  have always kept over five of these Angora-kidney-warmers to regularly wash and change them...
... and I made absolutely sure that my kidneys were always kept "snuggly" warm, protected ... and ...
... I have always avoided any draft on my kidney-region whilst being outside the house,
especially during the colder season and/or during the rainy-season ...
... and come to think about it, I don't really know whether it was any of these other points which I have just made above,
that kept my kidneys going for over 43 years and helped to slow down "my" kidney disease (Chronic Proliferative Glomerulonephritis),
so that I could delay my need for dialysis for over 43 years and my vegetarian diet during all those 43 years was just an added "icing of the cake" ?

[Athena]

Kristina

I've only just joined this site but I really find your life story and posts extremely interesting & inspiring. Wow, 43 years you've been living with CKD without reaching dialysis. You are exactly the person who I need to learn from. I don't know anything about chronic proliferative glomerulonephritis but it sounds as serious as what diabetic nephropathy is.

I was not trying to advocate for chinese herbs by any means but what I was trying to say is that maybe there are ways to do better to prolong our damaged kidneys than previously believed. I have a close family member who sustained a serious head injury many years ago in a car accident whose family was basically told that she won't live or she'll be left in a highly vegetative state. She ended up coming out of her coma recognising everything & after a long physical rehabilitation, simply returned to her normal life. The brain injury doctors told her they no longer need to see her. This real life true story does inspire me, even though it is not related to kidneys.

Your Angora kidney warmers now really intrigues me and I will look into this right sway. I do feel the cold very badly and it seems like commonsense to me to take extra measures to keep the kidneys warm. (I think the Chinese have traditionally practised this). Whenever I've had anyone offer to provide me a massage, I've instinctively asked them to apply warm hands to my kidney region.

As for diet, I am just as confused as the day I was when I was diagnosed. My nephrologist does not recommend a low protein diet because I suffer from iron deficiency anemia caused by another medical problem. I therefore desperately need the iron found in red meat. I can't go overboard of course but I do eat meat, eggs and dairy products like greek yogurt & cream. The only thing I've been told to keep to is a low sodium diet.

Kristina, thank you so much for being here. As pre-dialysis patients, we continue our search for ways to continue fighting for health.

[kristina]

Hello Athena,
Thank you for your kind thoughts and words and I do hope your diet works well for you
and provides you with many years of remaining pre-dialysis... (I keep my fingers crossed...)
... Perhaps "my" vegetarian diet and all the other kidney-friendly precautions I took over so many years,
were "only" applicable to slow down the detrioration of "my" Chronic Proliferative Glomerulonephritis...
... and I really don't know, how applicable my vegetarian diet
and all my other precautions could possibly be for any of the other kidney diseases,
because I have, from the very start, after my kidneys first failed (and recovered a little again) in 1971,
only ever concentrated in ways of how to slow down "my" particular Chronic Proliferative Glomerulophritis ...
... and to be honest, I don't even know, whether all these precautions I took did really help
to slow down the deterioration of my kidney-function, or whether I was just plain lucky...?
Over the years I have asked many doctors and nephrologists about this and they did not really have an answer either,
but they all agreed, that I was extremely lucky over all these years ... (whatever that may mean in medical terms...)

[kristina]

P.S. One of my “special tools” was - over many years - to check-up on everything I could possibly find and locate,
first in kidney-dietary-books and later on the Internet, what precisely to eat etc. to slow down "my" particular kidney disease...
 ...  and then I always wrote down all the vegetarian fruits and foods, which were mentioned "everywhere"
to help me slow-down “my” particular kidney-disease ...
... and after having done that, I only ate the fruits and vegetables which all kidney-sites agreed upon .... (emphasis on "agreed")
This is of course a very time-consuming exercise, can become a little boring sometimes and it certainly limits
all the fruits and vegetables I can eat to a very tiny limited choice
but in “my case” it was worthwhile the bother ...

I am very happy that I could stay pre-dialysis for over 43 years, because during all those years the dialysis-treatment has gone strides
and that makes my needing dialysis right now much easier to take and with much less bother and very much kinder to my body...
... Since starting dialysis I have continued with the same vegetarian diet as before
and my blood-test have already shown, that I am still doing the right thing...

[MuddyGurl]

Hi again..love to know more about the warmth of the angora …is this like a mini fuzzy girdle around the waist and abdomen?

I had also read that  that castor oil liquid, overlaid with pure unbleached flannel, with mild heat applied was supportive of the kidney.  nothing can grow new nephrons or heal them  but support of the lymph system is supposed to help the body overall.

I cut up some old flannel sheets, and I do NOT use an electric heat pad over my kidney, but do use my "bean sock" I have a  long, fleece  kittycat shaped bean or rice filled microwaveable  'sock', heat for 3 min, and lay against the PLASTIC  protection sheet over over the flannel and let it rest on the kidney for 20-45 minutes.

http://www.healthbeyondhype.com/info/castor-oil-pack-instructions        this is supposed to encourage the lymphatic system 

also..this seems a bit funny.  a Rebounder, mini trampoline helps the lymph too..bouncing gently on one 'shakes' up the lymph..when you think of how inactive most of us are, especially in office jobs this sorta makes sense?  yes, no?     I know That I can no longer bend over unless I have my cane or can lean on a counter or chair to pick up a dropped item.

 I watched a bariatric surgeon gave the facts (long your tube video of a medical meeting)  that MOST Americans walk EXACTLY 172 yards a fay..done.  from bed to shower, shower to breakfast, to the car, walk around at work, drive home, walk in front door, eat dinner, and walk to the couch for TV time, then to bed. sad eh???   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpyuslOwZSA 
Obesity in America: Diet Drugs or Surgery?

https://www.wellbeingjournal.com/rebounding-good-for-the-lymph-system/

http://www.naturalnews.com/031159_rebounding_lymph_system.html

[Alex C.]

Kristina

I've only just joined this site but I really find your life story and posts extremely interesting & inspiring. Wow, 43 years you've been living with CKD without reaching dialysis. You are exactly the person who I need to learn from.

FWIW, I managed to "live with CKD" for 53 years before I had to start dialysis. and I neither adopted a total vegetarian diet (although I did have days when I did not eat meat), I didn't give up alcohol or painkillers, nor did I ever take to wearing strange garments over my kidney regions (Angora kidney warmers? Geez, add a big hat and a flouncy skirt, and you'd look just like Stevie Nicks...). So, you can choose who you would like to lean from, but in the end, if you want good, educated opinions, you need to consult professionals, not just some anonymous poster with dubious opinions on an online forum.