Bakign soda to avoid dialysis
Hello, this is Katherine, welcome to 00kidney.
Today’s video is all about how to avoid dialysis and how to lower creatinine levels in kidney patients.
I had a lot of questions of people wanting to know how to use baking soda to improve kidney function and about how to lower creatinine levels to avoid dialysis.
People have been asking:
How can I use baking soda to lower creatinine?
What are the correct dosages for baking soda?
How can I heal my kidneys naturally?
So today I’m going to answer these very important questions.
I’ll give you the best answers that I can and I’ll try to make them as easy to understand as possible.
Now, I’ve seen plenty of videos here on Youtube telling people how to use baking soda or some other home remedies in a way that is sometimes oversimplified and sometimes just plainly wrong.
Remember that not all home remedies are safe and in some cases they may cause more harm than good.
So, before going to the part about home remedies, we need to understand a couple of things on how the kidney works a little bit better.
Now, if you know anyone who may benefit from a better kidney health… share this video with them! Click the share button below or send them an email!
Let’s start with our first question:
Can kidney damage be repaired?
Quite a lot of people ask this question and the answer is actually… pretty complex.
Because some kind of damage can be repaired and some cannot.
It also depends on which part of the kidney is damaged, on what caused the damaged and if the cause of the damage is still present.
Now, today’s video is all about simple answers to hard questions, so I’ll try and explain this in the best way possible.
To do this we need to see how the kidney works a little bit in deeper.
The kidneys are collections of tiny blood vessels that connect to filters.
Each kidney has 1 million of these filters, these are called the nephrons.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be an anatomy lesson, I’ll get to the point very quickly.
So all these filters are there for a purpose. To filter the blood.
But saying that they just filter is reductive
This is the same thing just zoomed in.
This is the filtering unit of the kidney, the nephron. A million of these make a kidney.
The tubule here is what usually gets damaged in case of renal failure.
The fluid that leaves a blood vessel through a filter goes to this tubule, where the kidney decide which chemicals get removed and which get drawn back to the body.
It’s a complex process that the kidney does millions times a day.
Before going back to the rest of the body, those tiny blood vessels that visited the filter move on to visit the tubules.
Although there are walls between the blood vessels and the tubules, they are so thin that the blood vessels can deliver nutrition and oxygen to the cells of the tubules.
They can also take back the stuff that exited through the filter, but is too useful to send out in the urine.
So, basically we are talking about an incredibly sophisticated filter that works on a microscopic level.
Now, the very important point:
The cells of those tubules exist on the brink of harm.
They have just enough oxygen, just enough sugar to survive. If anything interrupts their blood flow, even briefly, they are injured.
And let’s understand that these are the cells that have to filter anything we put in our bodies, toxins, drugs, sugar… and these things can damage them.
After an injury, the tubules cells could be hurt, or they could die. If they live, they’ll go through a period when they don’t work well. An injured cell swells, but if that cell is part of a tube, then the swelling closes the tube.
Remember how each single filter connects to one tube?
If that one tube is swollen shut (or dead) then nothing will leave through that filter.
That’s what kidney failure is…inability to filter the blood.
It’s not a concern if a few filters malfunction. But when enough fail, the body’s needs aren’t met.
– This is why kidney disease is divided into 5 stages. More filters malfunctions, more advanced the stage.
So picture a string tied around a finger, cutting off the blood flow.
If that string were in place for a couple seconds, upon removing it there would be no sign it was ever there.
But if it were tight for a day, the cells of the finger would die.
The finger would never work. It would blacken, shrivel…you get the picture.
But what if the string were there for 20 minutes? An hour? Two hours? After some time period, there would be redness, swelling and pain, but no cells lost. Eventually, the finger could recover, looking and acting normally.
At some longer “string” time, there would be skin cells lost, and scars that persist, but the bones and muscles might live. The finger might not serve well at the piano, but might be good enough for holding a paintbrush.
That’s why recovery is so unpredictable.
There’s usually a timeframe that tell us if the damage may be reversible.
This timeframe is usually considered to be three months. If kidney function stays below a certain level for these three months, we talk about chronic kidney disease.
Now, even if you have chronic kidney disease, not everything is lost.
When there’s a lack of blood flow in a kidney, not all blood vessels are affected equally.
Remember that there are two million separate filters, and you need just about half of them to get the job of filtering the blood done.
Some filter may be unrecoverable and some other may still get their function back.
Since every disease is a mixture of mild and severe damage, there will be some tubules that recover as well as some that die.
How that goes for the patient depends on the proportions of each, and, most of all whether the disease continues to cause harm year after year.
So to answer the question
Can kidney damage be repaired?
now, that we have a better understanding of how the kidney actually works,
it’s clear that some damage can be repaired and some cannot.
What this tells us is that the sooner we start the treatment, the better the results.
This will also help us giving an answer to the next very hard question
How can I improve my kidney function to avoid dialysis?
Now, before I get to home remedy part, there are other steps you can take to prolong your kidney function, especially if you get diagnosed in the early stages of kidney disease.
Remember, the sooner you start the treatment, the better.
But, even if you only get diagnosed in the advanced stages, chances are good that you can still enjoy a healthful quality of life with kidney disease.
There are many causes of CKD, but certain recommendations can help a person delay kidney failure, which leads to dialysis or kidney transplant.
The two main causes of CKD in Americans are diabetes and high blood pressure. These diseases should be controlled — or prevented — to help prolong kidney function.
How to improve kidney function with diabetes
What can you do to prolong kidney function if you have diabetes?
Very first thing to do would be keeping blood glucose level in an acceptable range.
There are medicines that your doctor will prescribe you and you should carefully follow the prescribed regimen.
Usually these include medications called angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) are used to treat high blood pressure.
Studies have shown that certain high blood pressure medicines can protect the kidneys of people with diabetes, even if they have normal blood pressure.
In addition, the hemoglobin A1c should be kept below 6.5 percent and kidney function tests should be performed at least once a year.
Now, this is what they usually prescribe, but every patient is different so always refer to what your doctor tells you to do.
High blood pressure and prolonging kidney function
Patients with high blood pressure should aim to keep their blood pressure under control at 125/75 or lower for those with kidney problems who are not diabetic, or 130/85 or lower for those with diabetes.
Now, if I’m telling you these things is because you cannot hope to get any results at all from home remedies if you don’t have diabetes and high blood pressure under control.
Nothing is going to help repair your kidneys if these two keep damaging them 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Other steps you should take include
eating a healthy diet and getting proper nutrition, losing excess weight and exercising
these the are keys to better health that are completely in the patient’s control.
In fact, many type 2 diabetics can prevent diabetes by following those steps.
People with high blood pressure are advised to limit sodium in their diet.
Avoiding too much protein and phosphorus in the diet may also slow the progression of kidney disease.
Now, there are ongoing researches on other foods and drugs to see their effect on delaying kidney failure, including:
– fish oil for IgA nephropathy; Fish oil may be useful for anyone suffering from kidney disease, but according to recent researches patients with IgA nephropathy may respond very well to it.
– dietary intake of antioxidant or anti-inflammatory vitamins and foods also may be very beneficial for anyone suffering from ckd.
Now, what about baking soda?
Can it really be used to lower creatinine levels? And how?
This is another interesting question that get often asked but that still has never got a simple answer.
So I’ll give you one today.
Baking soda can help you in a lot of cases, if you have kidney disease, but not everyone will have the same benefits from it.
There’s also a right way to take it you should know about.
Several studies were done on it and what they found out is that sodium bicarbonate was able to improve renal function in patients with metabolic acidosis.
What is metabolic acidosis and why is it important?
Metabolic acidosis is not acid reflux or heartburn, is a condition in which the blood gets more acidic.
This is a condition often associated with chronic kidney disease, because the kidneys remove less acid from the body when they don’t work properly.
When this condition is present, the acid/alkaline balance of the body is disrupted and the progression of CKD may be faster.
This can even cause an increase of protein in the urine, indicating that the kidneys are getting damaged at an increased rate.
other symptoms of metabolic acidosis include
Long and deep breaths
Fast heartbeat
Headache and/or confusion
Weakness
Feeling very tired
Vomiting and/or feeling sick to your stomach (nausea)
Loss of appetite
Not everyone will experience symptoms, however.
Now, the problem with metabolic acidosis is that if too much acidity builds up in the body, it will cause further kidney damage.
So basically it is a condition caused by kidney disease that will further damage the kidneys.
I think that knowing this it’s easier to understand why it’s so important to treat this condition.
Untreated, it will also cause bone loss (osteoporosis), endocrine disorders and muscle loss.
So, being able to stop all these problems with an home remedy like baking soda is absolutely amazing.
But how does it work?
Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is an alkaline substance and it neutralizes excess acids. The excess of acid is what was creating all these problems in the first place.
Now, using baking soda as a supplement is something you should never do without informing your doctor. So don’t take anything just because you have seen it here.
Baking soda can even have side effects, like nausea and bloating, and it contains sodium which increases blood pressure. So it can be dangerous if you take it and you don’t need it.
Also remember that not everyone can get the same results from baking soda. Even if metabolic acidosis is common, not every patient suffers from it.
So what to do then? Should you take baking soda? Should you avoid it?
Well, there’s an easy solution. Do the bicarbonate test.
There’s a test called CO2 blood test or bicarbonate test.
This test should be done regularly by kidney patients, but this is not always the case, so talk to your doctor and be sure that you’re being tested for CO2.
Now, if I’m telling you this it’s because keeping metabolic acidosis under control is one of the best things you can do to improve your kidney health and to lower your creatinine levels.
If people are convinced that baking soda can help with kidney disease it’s only because it can help with metabolic acidosis.
But there are other things you can do to avoid this problem and start improving your kidney health.
Very first thing would be… again, to get tested.
I mean… baking soda won’t do any good if you don’t suffer from metabolic acidosis.
So, to know if you have this problem, you need to do the CO2 test.
Now, the CO2 test is usually done as a part the Basic Metabolic Panel (BMP).
So maybe you have already done it?
In any case, the normal range for CO2 is 23 to 29 mEq/L (milliequivalent units per liter of blood).
In case you are out of the range, meaning that your level is 22 or below, you would have to take immediate action.
Ok, let’s say that you actually need baking soda. How should you take baking soda and what are the correct dosages?
Baking soda can be ingested or taken sublingually.
Modern day kidney experts recommend beginning treatment with small doses of sodium bicarbonate.
So start with half to one teaspoon of baking soda a day and then the quantity will be increased on lowered depending on your blood work.
Many patients also take sodium bicarbonate in tablets format. Usually 1 tablet is 650mg or 1 grain.
This product can be found in pharmacies.
But you can also use regular baking soda, and buy it at the supermarket, like this one I have.
The taste is a bit harsh but it costs a lot less and it’s easier to find.
Sodium bicarbonate should be taken between meals on an empty stomach to avoid bloating.
So, talk with your doctor, get tested for CO2. Then, if he advises so, start with a small dose of baking soda.
Then, schedule another test as soon as you have to do your next analysis for CKD and see if things are going better or worse. Then your doctor can adjust your dose.
So, to answer the question “can baking soda help you avoiding dialysis”?
The final verdict is that baking soda will not just slow down the progression of chronic kidney failure, but it can also help with heart disease, slow down the degeneration of your endocrine system and help with muscle and bone problems.
But you should not take sodium bicarbonate or any other supplement unless your healthcare provider recommends it.
And, remember that, other than being prescribed sodium bicarbonate, you should also be improving your renal diet.
In this video here you will find a lot of useful tips to improve your nutritional status with the best renal diet.
This is all for today, thank you for watching!
About the Author
Michaelw Hi, my name is Michael and in this blog I'm gonna share the story of how I got off kidney dialysis for good. Getting off dialysis isn't easy at all, and that's why I'm trying to help people as much as I can.
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