Kidney Patient Guide

I've been dialysing for many yrs now and am very aware of diet restrictions etc. Today I was told that I am malnourished and need to do something about it. I was told to eat more fish and chicken, however I'm vegetarian and have been for 20 yrs. It was suggested that I eat lots of dairy products but I suffer from high phosphate so that wouldn't be such a good idea. I also still have an out of control PTH so to add more phosphate or calcium to the equation may cause more trouble. Apparently my recent kt/v showed a urea of 14 which indicates that I'm not eating properly. Does anyone have any experience of this that they could share with me please.....

Debbie,

If all you need is more protein your best choice is eggwhite powder or whey protein.
http://www.eggstore.com
Eggwhite is lower on P, Ca, and Mg, but higher on K and NA.
For 1 gram of protein:
Eggwhite Whey milk
P= 1.3 mg 5mg 30 mg

For more info go to my website and read the diet page.
Good luck,
Gil

Debbie: I'm not the one to give advice on diet since I appear to be one of the lucky ones that practically ignores diet restrictions and gets away with it.

But it does seem to me to be time to abandon vegetarianism. It has a lot going for it and I wouldn't knock it; indeed, sometimes I've been tempted to adopt such a diet myself. But vegetarianism is really, it seems to me, to be only for the healthy who can afford to make choices. For folk in our positions we should take nourishment from where ever it is available and not worry about "isms".

I think it's hard to be a vegetarian and on dialysis simply because vegetarian foods are very high in phosphorus and it's hard to get enough lean protein, and easily absorbed protein through a vegetarian diet restricted by dialysis.

Someone like Cheryl in CT may have better answers. She was on PD briefly, and I think she simply ate a lot of rice. But like me, she wasn't on the super restricted diet for a really long time.

Is your unit not able to help you? It would seem something important for them to help you out with.

Sorry I can't be of more help. I'm not vegetarian and so I can't help much.

Natalie

My parents used to be vegetarian.. They stopped when I developed kidney failure simply for the medical reason that I needed the protien in a way very hard to obtain through food in 'normal' methods (eg it conflicts with the phosphate etc.)

Debbie,

Think you need to see a dietician. These pages have some stuff on vegetarian renal diets:-

http://www.ikidney.com/iKidney/Communit ... ations.htm

http://www.kidney.ab.ca/kidneys/diets/t ... arism.html - some good veggie protein cooking ideas

Tofu seems to be a good protein substitute, but you really really need professional advice as all the vegetarian protein substitutes are higher in potassium so you'll need some help working out how much you can eat,

Regards

Susie

Thanks to all who have replied.
I will never go back to eating meat/fish. I have been vegetarian for 21 yrs now, over 2/3 of my life and to start eating it now is not an option.
My dietician is useless... this wk my consultant has told me to eat all the dairy products that I want and to take extra renagel to help reduce phosphate. I'm hoping they will find the pth when I go for scan in couple of weeks and successfully remove it. It is definitely not in my neck so maybe should open a book on where it is located.

Good luck Debbie and let us know how it goes..

My doc told me its not unusual for parathyroids to be 'migratory' when forming (when you're growing) and that some people have more or less than the 'usual' number.

I'm guessing that of the 2 things that people have suggested the egg, and meat 'substites' may work..

Do let us know how it goes though, I'm interested.

Does anyone have a good dietician? My husband's was particularly useless when he was diagnosed. Had a photocopied sheet aimed at her primarily older clients telling you which vegetables you could boil to have with roast meat. It was very depressing. I know the renal failure diet has to be restrictive but I thought they were there to help.