Saturday, January 25, 2014

No treatment for kidney disease (yet)

We saw the nephrologist on January 24. She looked over the last three months of lab data. Doug's kidney function is still good, despite the leaking of protein. His creatinine is within normal limits. She gave us this analogy: Compare the kidney to a bucket. The bucket has a hole in it and is leaking, but it still can be used to carry water. So far, his kidneys are doing the job of filtering the blood.

The marker the nephrologist is using is the protein/creatinine ratio in the urine. Normal limits are from 0 to 200. Here are Doug's numbers:
on 10-23-13 it was 4868
     11-26-13           5653
     12-26-13           5625
       1-15-14           5131
She wants to wait one more month to see if there is a definite trend upwards before starting him on Prograf. Because his kidney function is okay, it buys us some waiting time. Right now, the only part of the blood lab work that is off is the low albumin level of the blood.

I like the way the nephrologist has of explaining things. I also like her decision to wait and see a definite trend before starting Doug on a drug that suppresses the immune system. Doug does have some ankle swelling; not good but not severe yet.

The only pain he is having right now is in his right knee. None of the previous scans show any MM involvement in that region; I really think that pain is due to arthritis. He can't take a lot of meds because of possible kidney damage, so he is taking Tylenol and using a heating pad and a cane at times. If it doesn't go away we might need to address that. One thing at a time please.

We continue to count our many blessings.
Love to all.