Kidney Disease, Lies and Prediabetes

As I mentioned on this blog before, I had some medical tests done and according to the non-doctor PCP I have, everything was ALL  bad and my life was over and I had to make arrangements for an animal shelter to take in my pet cats when I go. And then the paperwork from my medical tests finally arrived.

I found that my non-doctor had lied to me. She claimed that I now had stage four kidney disease. The tests clearly show that I am still at stage three. Perhaps she exaggerated to force me to go to a nephrologist? I’d go if they ever get around to making the appointment, so long as they don’t send me back to the incompetent nephrologist in the city of Iron Mountain they sent me to before. Iron Mountain is too far a trip to go to see someone who claims there is no way to improve CKD, you just have to wait until you are bad enough to go on dialysis. 

I still do have protein in the urine, which is why my non-doctor recommended that I cut the protein in my diet. I started using the Carb Manager app on my phone to track the protein. It’s hard. One chicken thigh, if it is one of the heavier ones in the pack, can send me over my protein allowance. It’s kind of hard to figure what protein allowance to set because the ones recommended in a kidney disease book I have are less than the amount of protein needed daily. I set a goal close to the needed amount since it IS cutting down. I need to do a lot of intermittent fasting (partial-day fasting) to keep in line. But worrying about my protein seems to make it easier to cut the carbs. I rarely reach anywhere near my net carb limit for the day. 

The good news on my medical tests is that according to my A1c, I am no longer diabetic but prediabetic. And if I can go down by another two-tenths of a percentage point, I won’t even be prediabetic any more. Victory! 

I’ve been stricter with my eating plan since hearing from my non-doctor about the test results. I’ve started using the Carb Manager, cut back on both carbs and protein, am experimenting with going lower sodium, and am doing more intermittent fasting. I did have 2 carb indulgences, but they were small, only put me slightly over my net carb limit, and didn’t kick me out of ketosis.

Here’s wishing you healthy eating,

Nissa Annakindt

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On Twitter? Follow my Keto/Lowcarb Twitter account: https://twitter.com/nissaamaskatoj

Kidney Test and the Food-Free Diet

Last Wednesday I got the results back on a kidney test and my results were worse. At least according to my PA. She wants me to eat less protein & less sodium. Since I need to be on low-carb to control my diabetes and I’m sure my very conventional PA presumes that everyone needs to be low-fat, that adds up to a food-free diet. Luckily I already have a couple books about that diet.

I have ‘The Complete Guide to Fasting’ by Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore, and ‘The Obesity Code’ by Dr. Jason Fung. Dr. Fung is a nephrologist (kidney doctor) and if fasting (or low-carb) were deadly for people with kidney disease, I assume he would know it. Perhaps be in jail for killing patients by now.

I ordered another of Dr. Fung’s books, ‘The Diabetes Code,’ which I intend to read cover-to-cover repeatedly even though Dr. Fung doesn’t write as well when he doesn’t have Jimmy Moore as a co-author. I also ordered 2 books on kidney disease and low-protein diets, both written by doctors. I need information!

Low-protein shouldn’t be THAT hard for people on the LCHF eating plan. Even though commercial sources brag about the grams of protein in meal bars and meal ‘shakes,’ our way-of-eating is supposed to be MODERATE protein. Because our clever bodies can turn protein into glucose. Also, protein intake can raise your insulin levels even if you eat it without carby foods— and that can make insulin resistance worse.

I have had fun calculating how many grams of protein I can be allowed on this new diet madness. First, I had to convert my weight from pounds into kilograms. Since I’m still hoping to lose weight and I don’t want to get in an eating pattern that I will have to make more restrictive soon, I used 160 for my current weight even though I’m at 182 at last check.

That’s about 73 kilograms. So at a .3 grams of protein per kilogram I can have about 22 grams of protein, and at .6 grams of protein per day that comes to 43 grams of protein. So my target is between 22 and 43 grams of protein per day. (Though my protein-needed amount is 50 grams per day I calculated.) I ordered a book of food counts that includes the protein & sodium counts to help with that. I also wanted to look for an app for my phone that did food counts, but I cannot find the darn thing at the moment— even though I put St. Anthony of Padua on the job! (Update: found it when the phone rang. Downloaded Carb Manager app and started using it.)

So— my current intermittent fasting plan calls for reducing my eating opportunities to one meal a day, with plenty of fluids in between time, and perhaps a bulletproof beverage to help me overcome hunger (which counts as a ‘meal.’ I’m going to replace my morning bulletproof coffee with a cup of hot bone broth (recommended by Dr. Jason Fung) and later a black coffee (with cinnamon & turmeric added.) 

It’s doable, and I haven’t been badly hungry so far. Just slight hunger pangs which can be ignored or defeated with a glass of water, tea or black coffee. My blood sugars are better— 101 this morning— and today I had a 123/72 blood pressure which is a big improvement. Plus according to my Ketonix I’m in moderate ketosis. 

So— good health and good low-carbing to you,

from 

Nissa Annakindt and her ‘unhappy’ kidneys

Hypertension/High Blood Pressure and Keto * Low-Carb

I was diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure) a long time ago— even before I started doing low-carb. But I was low-to-no income, and not yet on SSI disability and Medicaid, and so couldn’t keep up with doctor visits to be able to keep taking hypertension pills.

I think when I first started doing low-carb (in the 1990s) that it brought down my blood pressure. After all, doing Keto * Low=Carb is a reliable way to get your blood sugar down— so much so that doctors warn people to go to their own doctor to get their blood pressure and blood sugar pills’ doses cut down when they start Keto * Low-Carb. It’s a reliable effect.

But not enough of a reliable effect to overcome my years of carb-eating and vegetarianism. I developed Type 2 diabetes, and not too long after I began to have bad kidney tests. My blood pressure was high— not super-high or scary-high as long as I was doing low-carb most of the time, but still, high. My ‘PCP’ (the non-doctor who is my government-approved health care provider) threatened that I would be put in ‘a home’ because of my Asperger Syndrome if I refused to go to a nephrologist (kidney doctor) in the city of Iron Mountain, even though that’s more of a drive than I could handle. [My therapist at the time confirmed that they don’t put people with Asperger Syndrome and high IQs into ‘homes’ for disobeying a non-doctor.]

One nephrologist was from India, and though a conventional low-fat advocate who tried to push the ‘DASH diet’ on me, had some medical smarts and ordered tests to see if I had some underlying kidney problem. They fired her though, and the nephrologist I had to go to next was a woman from the Philippines who told me that my diet could not affect my kidney disease (I knew there was at least one peer-reviewed study to the contrary) and she also demanded that I take home a DVD about dialysis— even after I told her I had no working DVD player! Maybe I was supposed to sleep with the DVD under my pillow and the info would leak into my head that way? Anyway, I quit going back to her after that. My ‘PCP’ didn’t try to have me put in a home after all (and now denies she ever said it) but the bad thing was that I went off my hypertension pill.

When I had a small stroke in Feb. of 2019, I ended up on two hypertension pills, and my PCP recently increased the dose of one of them. I am now getting better blood pressure readings every morning. My Keto * Low-Carb lifestyle has not brought down my blood pressure by itself, nor has it healed my kidney disease. But I do believe it is helping heal my body. I just need pills as well now.

RESEARCH:

A 2011 study in the scientific journal PLOS One showed that a ketogenic diet reversed diabetic kidney damage in diabetic mice in two months.

A 2013 study of a small human trial published in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology showed improvement of kidney function in diabetics on a ketogenic diet for 12 weeks.

Do the veggies in your keto diet put you at risk for oxalate poisoning?

Recently I listened to an episode of Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low-Carb podcast which featured nutritionist Sally K. Norton, who warned listeners of the dangers of foods high in oxalates. These foods include many popular on the keto diet: spinach, almonds, peanuts, chocolate, swiss chard, tumeric, and cinnamon.

She tells of one case where some young children got kidney stones from the consumption of almond milk. The fact that oxalates can be toxic has been known since the 1930s.

Oxalate poisoning can cause many symptoms, and most medical doctors don't think that it may be at the root of the problem. Sally Norton gives on her web site a list of the symptoms that might be associated with an excess of oxalates: https://sallyknorton.com/symptoms/

Rhubarb leaves are high in oxalates--- so much so that many of us have heard that rhubarb leaves are poison. And they can in fact cause death from kidney failure.

Some low-oxalate greens you may use to replace spinach in your diet: arugula (what's arugula?), lettuce, bok choi, cabbage and watercress. And meats raised properly (grass-fed? raised without hormones?) are a healing food.

I am personally reducing my consumption of tea and chocolate, and eliminating almond and peanut products and spinach from my diet. Since I have kidney problems related to my diabetes, I think that's wise.

The podcast I talked about can be found on this web page: http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/17322/1412-sally-norton-sounds-the-alarm-on-the-oxalate-toxicity-of-eating-plants/     I listened to the podcast 3 times so far, it was that informative and inspiring.

Sally K. Norton's web site is full of information: https://sallyknorton.com

My keto diet experiences

My first experience with a keto diet was sometime in the 1990s when I picked up a copy of Dr. Atkins' first diet book in a Goodwill store in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

I read the book cover to cover and tried the diet. I was so surprised how easy it was to lose weight! The Atkins diet, at least in the Induction Phase, is ketogenic. Dr. Atkins recommended that you run out and buy ketone test strips and test your urine for ketones. That way you could tell if your body had shifted over into fat-burning mode.

After that point I started purchasing any diet book I could find that was low-carb or ketogenic in nature. I read all the info in the books, especially if they referenced scientific studies. And I tried low-carb recipes from a lot of different books.

I lost some weight on Atkins. But in time I stopped doing it. The reason was that it was just hard to find low-carb food you didn't have to cook from scratch. And I had to give up going out to restaurants. There were no restaurants in my area that had low-carb items. And my family members liked to take me out to eat.

I went back on Atkins at some point. I think I was on Atkins for a full year when my father died. But I had to go off the diet at that time because I was eating out with my mother, or eating at mom's house.

At some point, my mother gave me her old blood sugar meter when she got a new one from her doctor. I tried it and found out I had diabetes. My mom's nurse-practitioner put me on Metformin. Later another drug--- I think Actos--- was added.

I found that my blood sugar was only staying under control when I was ALSO doing low-carb. Since the nurse-practitioner didn't care what my diet was, that was working out. Except I wasn't losing weight much, since I was older, menopausal, and diabetic. I was more concerned with blood sugar numbers than weight at this point.

I got a bad number on a kidney test and so had to go to a kidney doctor. And then I had to apply for Medicaid and I had to get a new kidney doctor and new doctor-substitute. One of my kidney doctors took me off all my drugs saying they caused the problem. So I really had to go low-carb. A kidney doctor messed me up by demanding I go on a government approved diet (DASH diet) that did nothing to address my carbohydrate problems. But when I got worse blood sugar numbers she said I could do what worked for me.

I noticed that the more I stuck to my diet, the better my kidney tests were. My most recent kidney doctor told me that diet had no effect on kidney disease. Since I had recently read a medical journal article that said otherwise, and heard about others, she became my former kidney doctor.

I had been collecting cookbooks by Dana Carpender for some time by then. She came out with a new one with Jimmy Moore as co-author. That's how I learned about Jimmy Moore's health podcasts. And when he came out with The Complete Guide to Fasting with Dr. Jason Fung, a kidney doctor (nephrologist), I had to buy a copy.

I feel that I am getting very well read on the science behind ketogenic diets and behind fasting. But the follow-through is hard. I still live alone, don't have a dishwasher or running water in the kitchen sink, and have to drive to another state for a grocery store with good selection.

And so, this blog. I figure if I become a health blogger I will be more motivated to stick to my keto and fasting plan. And if I can help other people to become informed or inspired, that's a bonus. Since I am a Christian (Catholic flavor) I think helping others is cool. So, if I can help you--- maybe answer a question or something--- I will.

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My personal stuff.
On Sept 23, my weight was 199 pounds. (My all-time high was about 255 pounds.) My blood sugars, particularly in the morning, have been BAD. (Not saying how bad.) My blood sugar this morning was still BAD, but was significantly down from the 300+ blood sugars I have been getting in the morning. I have been doing Intermittent Fasting in the mornings, eating only after 11am. I'm trying to hold off until 12 noon every day, and stop eating after 6pm.

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Some books mentioned in this post.