Mastodawn

good thing I opened that packet of paperwork before my doctor's appointment next week. Apparently I was supposed to get bloodwork done before showing up. Guess who's leaving for a 1:40pm blood draw today.

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da_667 2d ago

the last kidney doctor I went to was like:

"How you feeling?"

me: "alright, I guess."

doctor:"Good, give me blood and urine. See you in six months."

This is the same dude who I had been seeing before my primary care physician got acess to their lab work and discovered I was in the middle of CKD in December, nearly a full year after I started seeing this dude.

@da_667 Yikes!

@mattblaze life sucks, I didn't know how bad it was, but I'm more well-informed now. At last check, it was at stage 3 (stage 5 is full kidney failure, and requires dialysis). Which means the damage is manageable with extremely close control of diet, and in general being healthier.

I've lost 56 lbs since December, and have taking a much more active role in eating healthier things. So, I'm on the right track, and just hoping it isn't too little too late.

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da_667 2d ago

@mattblaze according to internet resources, the biggest thing I have to do aside from already managing calories, sugar, and fat to help improve my A1C and Cholesterol numbers, is managing sodium, phosphates, and excessive potassium. Sodium is the biggest hurdle, requiring a lot of preparation and planning to get no salt added variants of things that I enjoy eating.

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A wizard did it

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@da_667 @mattblaze The only real solution (that I've found) to the low-sodium problem is to make everything yourself from ingredients. Use as few pre-packaged foods as possible (this includes like canned vegetables or pre-made tomato sauce). It's a huge pain in the ass at first, but after a couple months you start getting into the swing of it and it gets easier.

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da_667 2d ago

@Mustardfacial (removed matt because I don't want to spam him) yeah, I'm discovering that for myself as well. Its doable, but it requires effort and documenting everything that I'm putting in my mouth, or will eat a given day.

Before about a month or so ago, I had been giving little notion to my sodium intake. Now? Everything that I can do that has "no salt added" or can be prepared with as little sodium is possible is what I use.

No salt added tomato sauce, No salted added diced tomatoes, fresh, frozen or no salt added vegetables, lean proteins, no salt seasonings, or very light sodium seasonings (e.g. montreal steak seasoning, just the tiniest 1/8th teaspoon of seasoning salt, or the salt/pepper/garlic spice mix from kender) I've been able to consistently stay under 2300mg of sodium per day.

It just takes a lot of prep, and the discipline to stay the course.

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da_667 2d ago

@Mustardfacial Oh yeah, and I have to avoid most soup, any sausages, any deli meats, all forms of queso, but it is entirely doable.

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A wizard did it

🇨🇦2d ago

@da_667 The prep and pre-planning you have to do are the most arduous parts imo. I'm not Gordon Ramsey, I'm not waking up at 5am to go to the fish market to get fresh salmon. But it does really benefit to have some idea of what your week's dinners are going to be when you go shopping so you can plan teh fresh veg and meat intake without having to rely on pre-frozen/pre-packaged stuff.

I used the Sidekick app for a good while to help with this because it's really good about giving you recipe's that only take 20-mins to cook for the whole week and then building you a shopping list of exactly what and how much of it you need.