February 2nd 2016.
Talk about adding insult to injury - I got some blood results back yesterday which explain the reason I have been sleeping all day and all night and never feeling rested. So, now I need to take some medication to increase the oxygen carrying capacity of my blood and I'll be back swimming lengths in no time.
But what was also noticed was that my phosphate levels were quite high. Normal phosphorous levels sit between 2.5 to 4.5 mg/dL and phosphorous is essential for building healthy strong bones and repair of cell tissue. For now, we will just say that mine was quite a bit higher than that. Why am I even talking about this? Well, for a food lover, this has dire implications.
Previous therapies saw patients stop eating. So then, they had a normal phosphorous level but were half starved! These days, CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease) patients are advised to cut a number of different foods from their diet which, in the long term, will keep them healthier and will in my case, put the need for dialysis on the slightly longer short term finger.
I met the most beautiful woman a couple of weeks ago. She contacted my facebook page after seeing that I was to go on the transplant list. We sat over coffee for two hours and chatted like old friends, sharing stories and to be fair...I grilled her for most of it. She explained all the dietary restrictions to me and how she got around them, but I still didn't really think about having to do it. I suppose thats the whole denial thing!
Well here I am, slap bang in the middle of a reality I keep pushing to the place in my mind reserved for unicorns and leprechauns. And I have been told I have to seriously limit these foods because my life (I never thought I would say this) depends on it. When phosphorous levels become too high in a normal person, the body just excretes it through the kidneys and you go back to being a happy, normo'phos (yes, I made that one up). However, in those with CKD, the levels build up in the blood and in the long term, begin to leech calcium from the bones and deposit into the blood stream.
My simplified knowledge of the situation is that you end up with brittle bones, osteoporosis and more seriously, calcium deposits throughout your vasculature. Yes, that equals heart attack, stroke and lots of unpleasantness that we really want to avoid.
What do I need to do now? Well, I have been given a list of foods that I have to either exclude or limit hugely. Lets get down to the analysis and ask ourselves what the hell I'm going to do now.....
Chocolate; Sorry.......what? Yes, chocolate. I have been advised to look for treats in jelly babies as phos levels are high even in the raw cacao that I love! "Ok, stay calm Fiona....you can switch to having nut butters for treats". Now whats next on the list....
Nuts: Sh*t!
Green Veg: WTF??????
Dairy products; To include milk (thats ok, I can switch to coconut milk in my coffee, I think). But that also means that yoghurts and cheese are out too. Someone better come up with something to have on my nachos - inventors....get working! Iv'e just realised that this includes ice cream.....(insert crying emojii)
Beans: Thats ok, I hate baked beans. But wait....this includes lentils, chickpeas, kidney beans.....just all the beans I love and use to fill salads and sandwiches and eat on my low protein days.
Protein; Don't even get me started....thats a whole other world of pain. Although Im told that when I start dialysis, I can increase my intake to about 1.4g/kg of body weight. This is just about ok for a girls who would happily live on fillet steak alone.
Other foods; Here is where I have to do a 360 on my entire train of thought. Seeds, whole grain, nuts, bran.....yes, all the stuff that we label as 'healthy' is gone off the list. So now, I swap all my brown food for white. White pasta (yuck, Ill stick to my rice pasta) , white basmati rice (I have a feeling I will be starting up my own paddy field), white bread (I will stick to GF) and whatever else comes in that shade of pale.
So now, I start work on my most challenging client yet! Trying to put a food plan together is going to be tough. I have a 'renal' recipe book that I am going to try to make my own. Everything is salt free so I have to work hard on flavours. I am partial to being a size 10, so I will have to balance intake around my energy output but a few lbs either way won't bother me all that much. At the moment, my health is top of my priority list.
Any recipe ideas, send them on my way. And please remember, if you do nothing else, carry a donor card or consider giving someone you love the gift of life with a live donation. For further information on renal disease or renal transplant, go to www.ika.ie or www.kidney.org
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All feedback welcome folks. xx
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