newly diagnosed 9 year old with qustions

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ripplemaster
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2004 1:16 am

newly diagnosed 9 year old with qustions

Post by ripplemaster »

My nine year old son found out in april that he has one kidney. Can anyone explain why he needs to watch his soda and iced tea intake? he is confused and doesn't understand the effects that this can have on his body>
LadySycamore
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue May 18, 2004 9:48 pm
Location: Philadelphia, PA USA

Re: newly diagnosed 9 year old with qustions

Post by LadySycamore »

ripplemaster wrote:My nine year old son found out in april that he has one kidney. Can anyone explain why he needs to watch his soda and iced tea intake? he is confused and doesn't understand the effects that this can have on his body>
Is the one kidney not functioning at it's full capacity? If not, then soda contains a fair amount of phosphorus (which many patients must watch out for), and the extra toxins won't get cleared out properly.

The iced tea...not sure why that is.

You may want to take that up with your son's doctor and/or dietitian.

HTH.
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Hal
Posts: 617
Joined: Wed Apr 21, 2004 9:56 am
Location: Liverpool, UK

Post by Hal »

Its pretty much impossible to advise why this is the case without knowing his medical conditions and history.

I'd advise you to call your doctor and ask.

Good luck,

Hal
bluemoon
Posts: 120
Joined: Thu Jul 15, 2004 5:36 pm
Location: North Yorks

Post by bluemoon »

My ten year old son also has only one kidney.

He has to take antibiotics (to stop urine infection).

He also has an annual check up and thats it.

Maybe your son is different but the message we got was that people can function very happily on one kidney. (as us transplantees know full well)
Jim
ripplemaster
Posts: 2
Joined: Fri Nov 26, 2004 1:16 am

Post by ripplemaster »

His one kidney is functioning at almost perfect levels.
Is it true that too much intake of iced tea can cause kidney stones?
What about the effects of drinking alcohol. It is never too late to begin discussing this with him.
Also, to promote the one healthy kidney, how much water should he be drinking each day.
JR from Ontario
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed Sep 29, 2004 7:56 pm

Post by JR from Ontario »

Hi ripplemaster,

It's generally a good idea if everyone (even the general public) drink 2-3Litres of fluids per day. Water is good, but if your son doesn't like water, you can dilute some orange juice or other juice in water.

It's not good to drink 2-3L of sugar (ie: juice, iced tea, soda, etc). Prior to transplant, I liked Sunny Delight mixed with water. So in 1Litre of "mix", I'd have 200ml SunnyD and 800ml water. It takes the "boring" taste of water away. Now with my post-transplant, I found out (almost the hard way, thankfully I read the ingredients) that SunnyD contains grapefruit juice! Ouch!

When I was born, I was born with 1 kidney functionning at 35%, it slowly diminished to 10% this year (I'm now 25 years old), and through my teen years, I drank alcohol. Sometimes I went overboard (doesn't ever young adult), but it wasn't often. My docs didn't notice any adverse effects, but I would caution that to make sure your son's kidney lasts his entire life (my 35% kidney would have lasted me my whole life, but I have other problems that caused it to slowly fail), I would suggest that he limit his alcohol. I mean, teens/young adults will be teens/young adults and going overboard every now and then probably won't hurt, just make sure to teach him (and this is definitely common sense) that moderation is the key.

Hope this helps,

JR
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