I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on television

Hi!  Rachael M. here!

It's been a while.  Sometimes life surprises you with issues that seem to eat up all your time, you know?  I've had a lot on my plate lately.  Despite this, I keep trying to find time to tell you about a recent experience.

Before I tell you about it, please know this:  I am not advising anyone to do what I did.  I am not claiming any sort of guarantees.  I am not even suggesting that anyone follow my example.  I just want to tell you what happened to me from my point of view alone.

Okay.  On to the story.

My labs for July were not great.  A few things were in balance, but my Phosphorus has been on the rise for the last couple of months.  I know that a lot of the problem is my lax approach toward the balance between food and binders.  But I just couldn't find a way to regularly keep my Phosphorus in check.  I would eat something high in Phosphorus in a small amount, a few times a day.  And think, "It's barely anything so I don't need to take a binder."  But it adds up.

So, I decided to try something drastic as an experiment.  On August 1st, I changed my diet completely.  I went 100% gluten-free, dairy-free, and refined sugar-free.  I've always had digestive trouble and a sense of bloating and discomfort after meals.  So I eliminated all of the possible culprits.  The plan was to add one of these elements (gluten, dairy, sugar) back into my diet slowly and see if I had any reactions.  First I had to completely clear my system.

For the entire month of August, I ate absolutely no wheat, dairy, or refined sugar.  

I had labs drawn at the end of August.  My PD nurse called me with the results and told me the amazing news.  Every one of my lab values was within the proper range.  Not too high, not too low.  My labs were the best labs I've had since I started PD.  July's Phosphorus level was up near 7.  August's was in the 4's.  I was able to not only drop my Phosphorus by a couple of points, but get it into a pretty great place.

What happened?  Well, Phosphorus is very high in foods that are bready and cheesy.  Taking those elements out of my diet gave me a much easier method of controlling Phosphorus and taking my binders.  Without gluten and dairy, snacks became things like fruit, popcorn, V8 juice - things that I can graze on that don't require my usual three Phoslo binders.  The Phosphorus going into my body was dramatically reduced.  The other values all fell into line.

As an added bonus, I haven't had the digestive/bloating issues since living without wheat and dairy.

Anyway, that's what happened.  One month of eliminating all gluten, dairy, and refined sugar from my diet knocked my labs into shape.  All the values were within target range without even trying.  I was surprised at how quickly I lost the cravings for bread and cheese.  I got much more creative with meals.  I built my daily menus around animal protein, fruit, vegetables, rice, and oats.  I never felt unsatisfied or hungry.  And I have seen improvements in my complexion.

Again, this is just what I did as an experiment.  But I thought the impact on my lab work was worth sharing.  I am continuing to eat this way (eating "clean" and leaving out the wheat, dairy, and sugar) and will see if it affects my labs again this month.  I have no plans to add the wheat/dairy back to my diet any time soon.  I'll report back when I get this month's results.

If you have any questions about it, let me know!

Quick post - I haven't forgotten!

I'm not sure if it's been a bad case of writer's block, laziness, or busy-ness..but I have been a HORRIBLE blog updater.  I started a new job over the summer and now I'm working two jobs - teaching ESL at the college, and Admin Support in Counselling Services at the university here in town. Needless to say, this first week has been ... BUSY. I'm lucky if I remember to eat. And winding down at night has been my biggest challenge. I get home around 8:30 and my goal is to be in bed and asleep by 10:30. That hasn't happened this week yet, so I need to figure out how I can wind down more effectively so I get a good night's sleep.

Another challenge has been, of course, dialysis. Not really a challenge in that it's been difficult or anything, but I need to be more organized in setting up my machine earlier in the day when I have time at home and I'm not rushing to get to bed. These are the kinks that I need to work out over the next week or so as I settle into this routine.  Right now I'm telling myself that it's for 4 months - until December. I don't NEED to do both jobs, but I am because I want to be completely debt-free by December and this gives me the means to do that.  All part of the hustle. :)

So I've been thinking off and on what I want today's blog post to be about, and I do have to admit, I'm still stumped. At first I was thinking of writing about some things that bug me about Baxter - the PD machine is too heavy. Seriously. Have they looked into that? It's ridiculous to try and travel with that beast. But overall, Baxter takes pretty good care of us.

I then thought about writing about some of the developments I've been hearing/reading about for dialysis patients:  a coffee-cup sized "kidney" being developed in the States, 3D kidneys being "printed" in Japan (sign me up!!)... These developments are exciting for kidney patients and I'm more interested in going through with one of these procedures than I am with an actual transplant. I'll look for those articles and then post them in the next couple of days.

The Kidney March starts tomorrow. It's a 3 day, 100-km walk held to raise money & awareness for kidney disease. Nick Cannon is one of the big celebrity supporters, given his history of kidney problems. He did the walk last year, but wasn't able to do it this year.  A friend of mine is a renal/transplant nurse and she's on a team that's doing their second year. So proud of them! :)

I'll try and sit down this weekend and come up with an actual post instead of just rambling thoughts!
Rachel T