Renal Diet Podcast 063 – Commonly Prescribed Medications

Commonly Prescribed Medications for Chronic Kidney

Podcast #63 Released on January 14, 2018

There are a lot of conditions that can arise when you have Chronic Kidney Disease. Here are the commonly prescribed medications for diabetes, heart disease and mainly chronic kidney disease.

I am talking about commonly prescribed medications for diabetes heart disease and mainly chronic kidney disease. As you may know if you have it there's a lot of conditions that can arise has your chronic kidney disease and there's a lot of things that you had me before your chronic kidney disease that will cause you to continue to need to take medications.

I think it's important to realize that you're not alone that there's a lot of other people who have kidney disease, there's a lot of people that take these medications and they all affect us a little different but you're medications are very important.

I'll tell you a little story. Yesterday, I was at the doctor with my father and he is a veteran so were at the VA and he has the most awesome cardiologist and she was talking to him and asking him why there is a long period of time between his statin which is like a lipitor refills so she's like “You went for a long time without getting it refilled. You weren't taking it everyday?” And he said, “Well, I read on the internet that it might be bad and might cause these problems.”

And her advice to him which is the same advice I give to you which is before you decide to stop taking something, talk to your doctor about it and explain to them what you read and let them you know help you work through it whether it continues to be a good decision or if those side effects that other people are reporting. If you happen to have those, there's maybe a different medication but don't just stop your medication because you read something or heard something like in a video or something.

But also she said you know, a lot of times, the potential side effects that happened to very few people are the outcomes that you get by taking medicine and consistently and managing your condition are further and greater than those you are facing. Your risk maybe 1%, very small, whereas you'll achieve 50% reduction in your risk of a heart attack or stroke by continuing to take your low cholesterol medicine. Those are just made-up numbers, I am not quoting any research about the 50% and the 1%. I'm just saying she made a very good point that you shouldn't stop taking meds that your doctor and you shouldn't start over-the-counter meds without talking to your doctor. Sometimes, you need to realize the benefits you outweighs the risk so you have to make that decision with your physician or nephrologist whoever it is.

I just wanted to tell you that little story because it reminds me that we all can hear new things and misunderstand or not realize how much affect it can have on us.

To the topic at hand let's talk about medication common side effects. Big side effect a lot of people with kidney disease have is water retention, fluid retention so a lot of times and get a medication for fluid retention and those can make you have to go to the bathroom more often or other side effects. But you certainly if you have that the fluid can be bad if its in your extremities it can cause puffiness and other things. Make sure you're taking that but you may get something for that.

A lot of people have chronic kidney disease because your kidneys are significantly involved in your blood you can get anemia or your iron in your blood you may have to take an iron supplement you may take different multivitamin that has iron in it to help you maintain your iron levels. Anemia can cause you to be really tired and sluggish so you wanna make sure if you're starting to feel the side effects and symptoms that you talk to your doctor say ham tired, hard to get moving, those type of stuff. Let your doctor know.

Another thing that happens is sometimes you have electrolyte imbalances so you may have a too much potassium,too much phosphorus whatever so the doctor may give you some medications to help with that and sometimes they'll do phosphate finders that you take when you eat and that helps keep the phosphate in your food from going into your bloodstream and reduces your potassium and phosphorus levels.

Listen in to the Podcast to get more information.

Send in your questions about all things related to Chronic Kidney Disease to podcast@renaldiethq.com

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