More Health Issues in Life in General

About 2 weeks ago I went to the doctor for my continuing stomach issues and she got me a new cocktail of medicine to try. I’m surprised they haven’t tried to refer to me a GI for a scan or anything but I’m playing ball and taking the medicine.

But another thing I wanted to address was a recent trip to an Urgent Care where they found trace blood in my urine. The PRN said she wanted to repeat the test to see if that had resolved and I asked to repeat my blood test from a couple months back since it showed an elevated liver enzyme (just wanted to be sure that hadn’t gotten worse)

And the results weren’t great. The liver enzyme hadn’t gotten worse, but my kidney function showed decline. I had pretty much perfect levels in mid December, but this was showing my creatinine was elevated and my potassium was really high. My gfr was also much lower. Also the blood in my urine was still present.

Needless to say I was freaking out. What the hell had happened in two months to go from completely fine kidney function to early kidney failure? They said they think I was dehydrated (my specific gravity was maxed out) and to drink plenty of water before we recheck it.

Well it turns out they were at least partially right. I drank water like a crazy person and repeated the test two days later and it showed my potassium drop basically to the low side of normal, and my creatinine did drop some but was still elevated above normal. My gfr did increase a little as well, going from 72 to 79. Still not perfect but at least it was better.

And they still found the blood in the urine. The next step was they sent me for an ultrasound to see if there were any obvious problems. I’m lucky I found one that had an appointment the same day, because I was really panicked about all this (still am a little if I’m honest.) Good news tho, the results came back completely normal.

So the blood is still unexplained but at least the scan ruled out a lot of really bad shit.

So currently the PRN wants me to keep drinking plenty of water and we’ll recheck things in a couple weeks. But by then, my new insurance starts and this doctors office isn’t under the new plan. I already have an appointment booked with a new doctor after the new plan is effective.

I’ll probably just go directly to them and get them caught up with my situation.

I do have concerns that my current DO and PRN aren’t taking my situation seriously enough. My stomach doesn’t seem to be improving and this seems more serious to me than “let’s just wait it out and see what happens”. I assumed they’d see these results and want me to see a nephrologist just in case. I mean yeah it could be nothing but what if it isn’t?

I’m extremely suspicious of the cocktail of medications I’m taking as the culprit. They are convinced that’s not the issue since these medications aren’t typically toxic to your kidneys, but it’s literally the only thing that has changed between my normal metabolic panel and the shitty one I got recently. I wasn’t drinking less water or doing different activities or anything. I haven’t injured myself or anything.

In the meantime I did drop my HCTZ to half my dose (after asking the PRN for permission of course) because if dehydration is the true culprit then I probably don’t need so much of a diuretic (even though Jessica tells me it’s a pretty weak one). So far my BP has remained stable. My ultimate goal is to eventually lose all this extra weight and get off this BP medication altogether.

The good news is the initial stress and anxiety of realizing my kidneys are failing had me lose 7 pounds in 3 days.... yay. So a head start.

Last updated February 29, 2024