Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

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BEAR15
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:24 pm

Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by BEAR15 »

Hello -- I wanted a little discussion on thoughts about the root causes of IgA Nephropathy? Also, any thoughts on home remedies or personal tips to manage it?

I'll start ...


Pet tips:
  • April 2020: twice in two days, I had gluten products. On both days, my BP flared up, and I saw protein in my urine test strips for the first time (I check daily). Had two teaspoons of activated charcoal powder with hot water. Calmed down symptoms immediately.


    Cut gluten intake and any known allergens. Avoid anything which increases gut permeability (see article on lectins below). If you somehow ingest an allergen or something that causes a bad reaction, take activated charcoal powder with water . (Activated charcoal tablets should be good too, but have binders that may contain lactose).

    Golden Milk: basically, the recipe here, with almond and coconut 'milk', and without cayenne pepper.

    Pressure cook *everything* you eat. Reduce your intake of 'lectins'. Lectins are naturally occurring chemicals in food that attack your body from the inside and cause inflammation. The top 8 allergens contain some of the highest amounts of lectins. More information on dietary lectins is available from this very interesting article: Dr. Gundry: Lectins are the Root Cause of Inflammation and Disease

    Eat raw garlic cloves - 3 to start with, then 1 a daily. Chew well. It tastes horrible. I am left with a mild burning sensation and maybe in my tummy. From what I read, raw garlic helps fight H. Pylori infections.

    Give up milk. This used to be my number one tip, after observing my perfectly-behaved BP rise after drinking milk, and reading up a bit. But I the garlic tip above is more effective in controlling my BP. Two independent studies reported that half of IgAN patients have a IgAN flareup after ingesting milk: IgA antibodies in blood rise after drinking cow's milk (1991)[/ul] and [url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20979945] Gastrointestinal sensitivity to soy and milk proteins (2010)

    Get tested for H. pylori infection(see below). Mitigate H.Pylori infections by drinking cranberry juice, use lots of rosemary in well-cooked food, drink a concoction of rosemary boiled in water for several minutes and scum removed, have small amounts of red wine, drink green tea. These are especially important in combination with doctor-prescribed antibiotics to remove H.pylori. Much of the info on H.pylori mitigation came from the NIH website



    Monitor your blood pressure a few times a day. I've personally found it varies remarkably depending on food, sleep, etc. Keep a chart and see if you can somehow correlate with what you ate, your sleep, etc.

    Get adequate sleep. Ensure you begin to wind down towards the end of the day. Its important for blood pressure to dip at night. Time your medications appropriately.

    Reduce mucus formation. I have a lot of mucus and often use a mix of salt and activated charcoal in a hot salt gargle. Lots of stuff comes out and I'm left breathing easier.

    Avoid throat infections as much as possible. Stay warm. If you feel an infection coming on, drink hot chicken broth.

    Don't ever ever swallow spit or phlegm :wink: Spit it out.
Root cause: IgA is a class of proteins created in the body by the immune system. It's meant to fight infection. IgA is present in mucus ('mucosal IgA'), and blood ('serum IgA'). A certain subtype of IgA (called galactose-deficient IgA1, or gd-IgA1) is generated mostly in the mucus in response to infection. For instance, it is generated in response to infection by Helicobacter pylori, a nasty little bug that burrows into mucus. H. pylori is known to cause ulcers, and is thought to infect approximately 50 percent of the world's population. Somehow this "mucosal-type" gd-IgA1 ends up in blood. The mechanism of how it gets there is unknown, but H. pylori does damage the mucus membranes and make them more permeable. Anyway, once gd-IgA1 enters the bloodstream, another class of immune proteins called 'IgG' attacks them and together, these form large supermolecules (Circulating Immune Complexes). These supermolecules get trapped in the delicate kidney filters and damage them.

Update: My cardiologist (I've had a heart attack two years ago), agrees with the characterisation above (i.e., that IgA crosses mucus membranes). He also says cutting-edge cardiac research also fingers the same effect as root cause for blood vessels inflammation that leads to heart attacks. I strongly believe dietary factors, especially glutens (see first point), and perhaps lectins, play a role in this process.

Notes: Most of the information on root cause was sourced from here:
Immune complex formation in IgA nephropathy: A case of the ‘right’ antibodies in the ‘wrong’ place at the ‘wrong’ time?
Last edited by BEAR15 on Sun Apr 05, 2020 2:29 pm, edited 10 times in total.
wagolynn
Posts: 1362
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 2:49 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by wagolynn »

I suppose the medical fraternity are just dumb...
BEAR15
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:24 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by BEAR15 »

wagolynn wrote:I suppose the medical fraternity are just dumb...
No - it's a complex disease. The docs who help me don't have a handle on root cause.

I'm struggling with getting my blood pressure under control so I'm sharing what seems to work. Fish oil is also apparently very good for BP. I had some in the past and seemed to help.
wagolynn
Posts: 1362
Joined: Thu May 23, 2013 2:49 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by wagolynn »

Fish oil thins the blood, so it helps with BP.

A big help is to get your salt intake down, obvious things like don't add salt at the table or in cooking, black pepper makes a palatable substitute.
Most foods in their natural form have sufficient salt in them for our needs.

Look out for salt in ready meals, takeaways, etc.

Exercise will also reduce BP, nothing drastic, say a 20 min brisk walk 4 or more times a week, if you can walk and talk then that is not brisk enough.
BEAR15
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:24 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by BEAR15 »

Thanks Wagolynn.. yes, fish oil, salt (especially in ready-to-eat food) and exercise are good ideas. Also, checking Vitamin D levels and getting enough sunlight.
wagolynn wrote: Exercise will also reduce BP, nothing drastic, say a 20 min brisk walk 4 or more times a week, if you can walk and talk then that is not brisk enough.
One exercise helped me: the 100 pushup challenge. Just doing 100 pushups spread across the entire day (say, 10 at breakfast, then 10 every hour) got me to me lose a lot of weight. I found it best to ignore those musclebound people who emphasise technique. If my elbows flex and straighten, it's a pushup and i count it. The main idea is to ramp up numbers gradually up over time! :D

I find making a homecooked stew with tons of tumeric powder and rosemary helps a fair bit -- my BP seems to do better the weeks I consume it. Add a fair bit of freshly ground black pepper - it makes tumeric more bioavailable. And do not skim the 'scum' off - lots of tumeric is lost :)

There's this very interesting article on some new therapies that help long term prognosis. Its a survey article (meaning its not original research), but it makes some interesting points on tumeric, the intestine lining and kidney disease:
"Stop chronic kidney disease progression: Time is approaching"
BEAR15
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:24 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by BEAR15 »

Rolled all suggestions into the top post, including my current top recommendation: ditch milk
BEAR15
Posts: 13
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2018 2:24 pm

Re: Pet home remedies for IgAN? Thoughts on root causes?

Post by BEAR15 »

Amended my top suggestions (the first post in this thread) after experiencing IgAN flareup twice in two days. I had gluten containing breads each time, which may have been slightly off (one was a 'sprouted bread' health-food left in fridge too long; the second was a sourdough I fermented myself). In both events, I detected protein in urine test strips for first time since I started testing at home (being testing 8 months or so).

Solution: Activated charcoal powder in water gave instant relief. My current top recommendation: ditch gluten, use activated charcoal powder at first sign of trouble.
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