A Moment of Truth

So the moment of truth came when I stepped on to the hospital scales and weighed in at 115.2kg, a 9kg loss since my previous appointment in January. My consultant was pleased and despite the flu and gout that plagued the months in between my kidney function was stable, with eGFR up 1 point at 28. So for now I’m holding my own and the more weight I lose the better some of the readings will get, although nobody is pretending there will be a fairy tale ending to CKD.

I explained about the gout attacks and it was agreed I could ditch Furosemide given it was probably doing more harm than good, and in her own words she doesn’t want me getting down to 100kg only to have worn out joints. I still need to take the higher dose of sodium bicarbonate, and if I feel like I’m retaining water I need to start taking the water tablets again. Fortunately to the best of my knowledge I’ve never suffered water retention, either that or I have and just haven’t realised it.

I got a prescription for Colchicine (a.k.a. magic tablets) which pretty much took care of the current attack in three days. I’m now waiting to be fully clear so I can start on a low daily dose of Allopurinol, although I’ll also need to take a couple magic tablets every day for two weeks to mitigate against a new attack when I start. At the moment the swelling is gone from both feet and I’m taking decent walks, but there is still a little residual pain in a couple of joints I want to clear (also my in-laws are going to bring me back some more magic tablets from Northern Cyprus in a couple of weeks so I won’t risk running out at a crucial point).

In the afternoon I saw my GP for my annual check, most of the blood readings (kidney function aside) weren’t noteworthy but did warn that I’d flagged for pre-diabetes and needed to look at my diet and weight. I explained about the weight loss programme to get down to 100kg so I make the transplant list when the time comes, he seemed tiny bit surprised we were looking at that outcome already, but didn’t challenge it when I said it was inevitable at some point. I just need to carry on with what I’m doing, there is no other treatment needed.

So now the challenge is to fight complacency on the diet front, I have slipped a little lately, not massive binges, but a little less disciplined than a couple of months ago. Getting rid of the gout and the better weather should enable more exercise, I’m thinking of treating myself to a fit bit for my birthday which will hopefully act as challenge to my activity levels.