Hi Ho Hi, On Steroids I Go..
Posted 5th November 2010 at 04:08 AM by Lord Blackmore
Well, 6 months of the lower level of treatment for my protenuria hasn't managed to reduce the protein leakage from my kidneys. The meds are doing a good job of keeping it in check, but there hasn't been the improvement that we had hoped for.
So we're moving on to more agressive treatment and immunosuppressants. This decision isn't taken lightly as this course of treatment some potentially concerning side effects, including weight gain (due to increased appetite), becoming pre-diabetic, possible mood changes (my biggest concern really) and some other things.
I'm not entirely educated on the specific of how the treatment is delivered, except that it's a 6 month course of treatment with alternating months of steroids and immunosuppressants. When I first start the steroids, it will be 3 consecutive days of treatment of infusion of steroids, after which it will be pills.
Despite the ongoing issue, I feel pretty good. My biggest pain in the rear is the edema in the lower part of my body due to the protein leakage. It's very uncomfortable. It's also a very weird feeling when your pants fit fine, -except- your calves where it feels like a couple of balloons in there.
On the good side of all of this, I'm seeing a health coach and a nutritionist to help make some changes in my lifestyle (like getting more exercise) and understanding how to improve my diet. Interestingly, my diet was too bad when I went over it with the nutritionist. What I really didn't understand was portion size for some things and the kinds of limits I needed to adhere to, such as keeping proteins between 80 and 90g a day.
I also got introduced to a site named calorieking.com, which has nutrition information for almost everthing under the sun, which makes it easy to see exactly what foods have in them and how much. Looking things up is free, too.
More news later, I guess. Not sure when I'm starting the steroid treatment.
So we're moving on to more agressive treatment and immunosuppressants. This decision isn't taken lightly as this course of treatment some potentially concerning side effects, including weight gain (due to increased appetite), becoming pre-diabetic, possible mood changes (my biggest concern really) and some other things.
I'm not entirely educated on the specific of how the treatment is delivered, except that it's a 6 month course of treatment with alternating months of steroids and immunosuppressants. When I first start the steroids, it will be 3 consecutive days of treatment of infusion of steroids, after which it will be pills.
Despite the ongoing issue, I feel pretty good. My biggest pain in the rear is the edema in the lower part of my body due to the protein leakage. It's very uncomfortable. It's also a very weird feeling when your pants fit fine, -except- your calves where it feels like a couple of balloons in there.
On the good side of all of this, I'm seeing a health coach and a nutritionist to help make some changes in my lifestyle (like getting more exercise) and understanding how to improve my diet. Interestingly, my diet was too bad when I went over it with the nutritionist. What I really didn't understand was portion size for some things and the kinds of limits I needed to adhere to, such as keeping proteins between 80 and 90g a day.
I also got introduced to a site named calorieking.com, which has nutrition information for almost everthing under the sun, which makes it easy to see exactly what foods have in them and how much. Looking things up is free, too.
More news later, I guess. Not sure when I'm starting the steroid treatment.
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Comments
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SparkPeople also has a nutrition tracker with nutrition info for lots of things, including info that other people have put into the database. So for example, if you grab a Yoplait Blueberry Yogurt you can check & see if someone else already put the info in the database and use that.
Good luck with your program.
Posted 5th November 2010 at 06:21 AM by Panacea 
