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They’re Not Twins

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Kidney ArizonaMarch is National Kidney Month here in the United States.  That makes it an even better time to have yourself screened for Chronic Kidney Disease. 28 million people have it and quite a few of them don’t know it.  Don’t be one of them.  All it takes is a simple blood test and a simple urine test.

Talking about blood and urine tests, I mentioned in passing on one or two of my blogs that your values and the reference range values on your lab tests may differ according to the lab you use, and loads of physical factors such as: being adequately hydrated, having voided your bladder, having gotten enough sleep, even how the specimens were handled.

I was in the unique position of taking these two tests once and then again two weeks later. Had the due date of the tests for each doctor been closer, I might have combined them and had the results of the one set of tests sent to each doctor. But my nephrologist needed his tests two weeks before my appointment, and my primary care physician {pcp} needed hers no less and no more than every three months since she was monitoring my bmpliver for the effect of a medication.

She was checking primarily for my cholesterol levels {which are better than ever and finally all within range, thank you very much!} and included the other tests because she is one thorough doctor. He, my nephrologist, was much more concerned with my kidney function.

The reference range values from the two different labs I used were not twins. For example, Sonora Quest, the lab my nephrologist uses, has the acceptable range for creatinine as 0.60 – 1.40.  But my pcp uses LabCorp. which states that it is 0.57 – 1.00 mg/dL. If you look to the right, you’ll see an older test result using mg/dL.

I wasn’t really sure what mg/dL meant, so I looked it up. According to the Free Dictionary at http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/mg%2fdL, this means

Milligrams per Deciliter

That was my reaction, too, so I used the same dictionary for both words used in the definition.  Milligrams means

A unit of mass equal to one thousandth (10-3) of a gram

while deciliter means

100 cubic centimeters

We are talking small here!Book Cover

The results for this test were a little different, too.  On February 10th, it was 1.11, which was not out of range for Sonora Quest.  But two weeks later, it was 1.1 – ever so slightly lower – which was out of range for LabCorp. This is a bit confusing.

Let’s go back to What Is It and How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease to see if we can shed some light on this. On page 21 {Use the word search if you’re using the digital version of the book.}, I wrote

A higher creatinine result could mean the kidneys were not adequately filtering this element from the blood.

By the way,

Creatinine is a chemical waste product that’s produced by your muscle metabolism and to a smaller extent by eating meat.

Thank you to The Mayo Clinic at http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/creatinine/basics/definition/prc-20014534 for this clarification.

All I can say is that seemed like earth shattering information when I was first diagnosed with CKD.  Now that it’s seven years late, it just means I have CKD.  It’s sort of like reiterating I have this slow decline in the deterioration of my kidney function no matter which acceptable range we use.

Another difference in value ranges was BUN.  This is your urea nitrogen. Medline Plus at blood drawhttp://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003474.htm explains

BUN stands for blood urea nitrogen. Urea nitrogen is what forms when protein breaks down.

This could be a ‘Who cares?’  statement except that the BUN is used to measure your kidney health. Sonora Quest’s acceptable range is 8-25 mg/dL, while my LabCorp’s is 8-27. At the first lab, my value was 22 and at the other, two weeks later, it was 17. Both were in range, but let’s say – just for argument’s sake – my value had been 26.  Would that mean I was out of range?  It would at one lab, but not the other.  I think I just answered my own question as to why I need to have my doctor interpret my lab results even though I can read them myself.

Well, what makes these levels go up or down? Thank you WebMD for this simple to understand answer.

If your kidneys are not able to remove urea from the blood normally, your BUN level rises. Heart failure, dehydration, or a diet high in protein can also make your BUN level higher. Liver disease or damage can lower your BUN level. A low BUN level can occur normally in the second or third trimester of pregnancy.

Aha!  We know that as CKD patients we are restricted to five ounces of protein a day. Why combine an inability to “remove urea from the blood normally” with an overabundance of protein?

Hopefully, some of the questions you didn’t even know you had were answered today.

Part 2I’m sorry if you missed out on your free copy of The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 1  by being the third buyer during the last part of February. While I’ve used up my freebies for that book, I’m now working on a free day for The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease, Part 2 on World Kidney Day, March 12.  Keep watching for more news about this as Amazon and I keep working on it.

Again, if you’d like to join us for the Kidney Walk on April 19 at Chase Stadium in Phoenix, why not go to the Walk’s website at http://kidneywalk.kintera.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=1125145 and join our team, Team SlowItDown. We’ll be looking forward to seeing you there.

Until next week,

Keep living your life!


Filed under: B.U. N., Blood, Cholesterol, Creatinine, Death Risk, Dehydration, Diet, Fluid Intake, Kidneys, Medical Self Help, Memoir, pregnancy, protein, Statins, Testing for CKD, Uncategorized, Urea Tagged: B.U.N., blood test, Creatinine, kidney damage, labs, National Kidney Month, reference values, The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease Part 1, The Book of Blogs: Moderate Stage Chronic Kidney Disease Part 2, What Is It And How Did I Get It? Early Stage Chronic Kidney Disease

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