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How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 9:47 am
by johnmac11
I was diagnosed at the end of 2012 by the Alfred Hospital Renal Clinic (Melbourne, Australia). I had cured an autoimmune disease before (ankylosing spondylitis) so wasn't unduly worried about retiring GN. As it turned out the task took 18 months, a little longer than I expected.

In that time I went from a urine protein/creatinine level of 595 to "undetectable"; symptoms vanished fairly early in the piece.

For anyone's who's interested, this was the process. It's phrased in the form of advice to a friend whose daughter has just been diagnosed. (There were quite a few links in the original, but they don't appear to have come thru. I can send them to anyone who's interested.)

General:

1. Medicine doesn't know how to cure chronic & degenerative diseases, so it isn't wise to wait for answers on kidney disease from doctors. (If I did, I would probably still be sick.)

2. But medicine does have a near-monopoly on pathology testing - and those numbers are an excellent indication of progress. It's good to get familiar with your blood albumin number & your urine protein-creatinine number. I kept mine in a spreadsheet, & it was a continuing inspiration to watch the former rise and the latter fall. (My protein-creatinine fell from 595 to "undetectable" in 18 months; and my blood albumin rose from 18 to 43.) Symptoms (edema, frothy urine) also vanished.

3. The problem in curing any autoimmune disease is not a lack of solutions (there are more than enough) but a lack of will to apply them. The latter is always the roadblock - never the former.


Specific:

I'd think that the modern lifestyle is what causes kidney disease, as kidney disease isn't present in any of the studies I have seen of primitive tribes. It's an educated guess that the aspects of modern life most to blame are:

* Pro-autoimmune disease foods such as dairy & gluten grains (whose proteins the immune system thinks are enemy pathogens, & attacks). Other culprits are peas & beans (especially soy): depends on how hardline you want to get.

* Lack of exercise. Hunter-gatherer women (all our ancestors bar the last few) had a daily walking range of 8-20 km, & climbed trees, went after small game, & carried kids and bags of tubers everywhere; then made tools, & danced 3-4 nights a week.

* The other big thing that has changed since the Stone Age environment for which we were designed is that our chronic stress levels are way higher. So anything (yoga, meditation, therapy, TRE, moving to the country) that reduces those will benefit. Psycho-neuro-immunology has demonstrated many pathways leading from a stressful environment to various disease states.


My philosophy was to throw everything at the kidney disease, so once the above is in place you could also:

* Take the Chinese herbs that work against kidney disease. The main one is astragalus. Google astragalus nephritis & you'll see some papers & case studies of people who were cured of glomerulonephritis by astragalus alone. This paper discusses several other Chinese herbs used against kidney disease. I bought most of them (at Botanica in Glenferrie Road, plus maybe one or two online) and made a pot of herbal tea from them, which I drank through each day. My list was Astragalus, Dong quai (angelica sinensis) (don't use if on blood-thinners as it is a blood-thinner), T Wilfordii, Rhubarb (da huang), and L Wallichii. And nettle.

* Make a daily vegetable juice. (Plenty of carrot & apple will make it drinkable.) That's how Dr Sandra Cabot's grandfather cured her grandmother of nephritis - & was part of my cure too. Put garlic & tumeric in the juice, as these knock off all viruses, bacteria & fungi, & have lots of antioxidants. Oxidative stress is involved in kidney disease, and the antioxidants in garlic & tumeric will counter that.

* Green tea. Green tea's chief curative element is its "EGCGs". According to the literature, these "favorably affect the development of immune-mediated glomerulonephritis"..."reduced proteinuria and serum creatinine, and marked improvement in renal histology".) As green tea is cheap, easy to make & not bad to drink, it's another no-brainer.

* I took a spectrum of vitamins & minerals, just to make sure those bases were covered. One important one is vitamin D, deficiency of which sometimes occurs with nephritis. iHerb in the US is an excellent source of cheap online vitamins. They're quick & the freight is cheap.


Beyond the above, there are many more options. But budgets, time & tolerance are all limited: doing everything is impossible, & trying to do everything is probably counterproductive: life just gets too narrow to be enjoyable. However if further experiments are desired at some stage:

* There is some evidence that stomach enzymes such as Serrapeptase control kidney disease.

* Allergy testing might identify unsuspected allergens that make the autoimmune response worse. For example many people with autoimmune react badly to the nightshade family. (They never bothered me, but ______ could be different.)

* Acupuncture seems to address many problems that Medicine can't.

* The list goes on: Removing amalgam fillings and/or chelating out mercury (there is evidence that mercury causes autoimmune disease, and also it is directly nephro-toxic); fixing her body's methylation (detox) system with methyl supplements; taking strong probiotics to heal the gut, & thus stop leaky gut - the process by which food proteins escape into the bloodstream & provoke the autoimmune response... etcetera.

John

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 12:03 pm
by Rik
I love it when people crop up on here and claim they can cure something ...
I still remember the man who claimed vinegar cured all kidney issues ...
personally I prefer people popping up on here selling naked pictures of Shakira ...
more believable and far more interesting .........
take note of the bold highlighted parts below ...



Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) is a long-term (chronic) condition in which the spine and other areas of the body become inflamed.

The symptoms of AS can vary but usually involve:
•back pain and stiffness that improves with exercise and isn't relieved by rest
•pain and swelling in other parts of the body, such as the hips, knees and ribs
•fatigue (extreme tiredness)

These symptoms tend to develop gradually, usually over several months or years, and may come and go over time.

In some people, the condition gets better with time but for others it can get slowly worse.


Glomerulonephritis is usually the result of a problem with the immune system, which causes it to attack healthy tissue in the kidneys. However, there are many cases where the exact cause is unknown.
Glomerulonephritis is sometimes short-lived (acute), but often lasts for a long time (chronic).

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 12:53 pm
by rheaybou
Rik,

Maybe just posting a blank with your signature animation would have been the best reply :D

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:07 pm
by Rik
ImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImageImage

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 1:10 pm
by Tibbs
Double-Blind Trials or it didn't happen.

As I've said on here before - the plural of anecdote is NOT data.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:30 pm
by rheaybou
Perfect Rik.

I like a tim minchin quote from time to time....Image

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 3:56 pm
by cph1234
I stopped reading the post when I got to the bit about taking Chinese medicine.

I have read reports that it can be very harmful. I would never take it.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 4:09 pm
by Rik
oh I loved a good Chinese when I was on dialysis ... :roll:
it didn't do me any harm!! :?

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2015 7:47 pm
by hotashel
Wow, drink green tea and brew some herbs. If its that simple why I am going through dialysis along with a lot of people on here.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2015 8:03 am
by foam
Well nothing new about improving kidney function via fixing the immune system disease causing the damage.

My GFR has improved from 50 to 90 in the last 12 months. Just taking tacrolimus to stop my immune disease and stopping eating all inflammatory foods is all I've done (ie I don't eat any grains, grain based oil or dairy) or any processed foods. My doctors have been impressed.

My version of immune system fixing juice is fennel, ginger, beetroot and celery. I've found those are the most potent and important ingredients for me.

Sorry I forgot something important. I take a LOT of vitamin d. I wouldn't recommend the amount I take in case it causes you a problem. (I'm taking more than 10,000 iu a day and often 20,000iu a day) but I take breaks from it for a couple months then hit it again. The thing is I believe vitamin d is most responsible to produce the few stem cells adults make and you need stem cells to repair kidneys.... So...

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 10:19 am
by johnmac11
No, nothing new.

Grasping the grains/auto-immune link has fixed a lot of people of a lot of things.

The thing that twigged me to the immune-modulating effect of the Chinese herb astragalus was that in the doc's case study - actually the graph therein - the patient's protein-creatinine levels dropped once she began the herb, went up again when she slacked off and stopped taking it, and dropped again when she got back on the rails. The angles in the graph are quite pronounced at those key junctures. My levels went from very high to normal over a similar period to hers. (My latest lab result yesterday confirmed the good result.)

It's nice to be free of kidney disease.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 2:10 am
by foam
Johnmac11, I appreciate the effort you put into your post even if no one else did. Your right, you can try and explain the detrimental effects of eating inflammatory foods until you are blue in the face but most people don't want to believe it because its hard for them to break the habit.

I've read great things about astralagus ,enough to have bought several packets of seed in the past but never got around to taking it.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2015 8:17 am
by hotashel
foam wrote:Johnmac11, I appreciate the effort you put into your post even if no one else did. Your right, you can try and explain the detrimental effects of eating inflammatory foods until you are blue in the face but most people don't want to believe it because its hard for them to break the habit.

I've read great things about astralagus ,enough to have bought several packets of seed in the past but never got around to taking it.
If its that good why haven't you "got round to taking it" as you say. If you were so sure it was not going to harm you and do the opposite and free you from kidney disease surly you would of started on it as soon as it landed on your mat? yes. So what your saying is that if I eat all the things you have said (by the way I have no problem with giving things up I have to point out as I gave up smoking in readiness for my transplant, and lots of high potassium foods so no issues with the giving up of things its called WILLPOWER) I will be cured.

So when I visit my neph next time I will be able to tell him that he can take my catheter out as I no longer need dialysis and I can tell my friend thanks for the kidney but I don't need it your kidney after all. Is that what your telling me? Well I will tell you what I know for fact even if I eat the things you say I will be exactly the same and I will still need a transplant. Are you a doctor as you didn't say but I would take my doctors words over someone like you any time. Hypocrite is the word I would describe for you as you preached about the benefits of the seed and even bought some but you wouldn't eat it so that speaks volumes for me.
Good luck with your ahhem diet let us know how its goes for you in years to come.
Take care

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:46 am
by foam
hotashel wrote:
foam wrote:Johnmac11, I appreciate the effort you put into your post even if no one else did. Your right, you can try and explain the detrimental effects of eating inflammatory foods until you are blue in the face but most people don't want to believe it because its hard for them to break the habit.

I've read great things about astralagus ,enough to have bought several packets of seed in the past but never got around to taking it.
If its that good why haven't you "got round to taking it" as you say. If you were so sure it was not going to harm you and do the opposite and free you from kidney disease surly you would of started on it as soon as it landed on your mat? yes. So what your saying is that if I eat all the things you have said (by the way I have no problem with giving things up I have to point out as I gave up smoking in readiness for my transplant, and lots of high potassium foods so no issues with the giving up of things its called WILLPOWER) I will be cured.

So when I visit my neph next time I will be able to tell him that he can take my catheter out as I no longer need dialysis and I can tell my friend thanks for the kidney but I don't need it your kidney after all. Is that what your telling me? Well I will tell you what I know for fact even if I eat the things you say I will be exactly the same and I will still need a transplant. Are you a doctor as you didn't say but I would take my doctors words over someone like you any time. Hypocrite is the word I would describe for you as you preached about the benefits of the seed and even bought some but you wouldn't eat it so that speaks volumes for me.
Good luck with your ahhem diet let us know how its goes for you in years to come.
Take care
Wow... I haven't taken it because it takes a couple of years to grow, did you read I had seeds?., thats just a lot of effort and I go sidetracked. No other reason. If you've left your kidney disease go so long you are on dialysis you aren't often going to fix them obviously (some people with acute injury do of course) but that doesn't mean you can't come back from mild and moderate damage relatively easily. I've got a few doctors and they all agree grains are a problem, they are all super impressed with my recovery also.

I just think the angry and unreasnoble replies John received when he's just trying to give advice from his own experiences was extremely rude. Just like your reply to me was rude and uncalled for. I don't know any of you but I know enough about it and experienced enough to know when someone is telling the truth.

Its quite irresponsible to go around telling people gfr can't improve and kidneys can't heal because its just not true. Mine are still improving further all the time, sure they were only at 50 but now at 90 I can't complain.. Time will tell but I seem to be cured from an "incurable" disease too. Have a bit of confidence in what can be achieved and don't just write yourself off.

Re: How I cured my glomerulonephritis

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2015 4:53 pm
by AmandaClare
Wow foam, you cured yourself just with a few changes in diet and some juicing?

Oh, and taking tacrolimus, a powerful big pharma immunosuppressant...

Rik, I think we need some more bums over here. Lots of bums.