Wilkie Wages War: November 2006
Wilkie Wages War: November 2006
Environmental Health Network leader Barbara Wilkie discovered in July 2005 that her chemical injury/multiple chemical sensitivities had suddenly manifested as stage 4 (later stage 5) kidney disease (kidney failure). Despite dire warnings of death within a year, she eschewed dialysis and Western Medicine drugs and took a route of alternative medicine, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and strict dietary changes. She lived well for six years, far beyond the doctors’ predictions. Barb died at home, surrounded by friends and family, on May 31, 2011.
During this time, Barb documented her journey. From diagnosis through June 2008, she created one huge website page packed with details, plus some side documents on diet and other topics. We have divided these works into smaller pieces, by date or topic, to make it easier to read and find things. For dates after June 2008, we have letters, online posts, and other documents.
Barb intended her work to be read and used. We hope this presentation will help you do just that.
Wilkie Wages War on Kidney Disease
(aka Renal Disease or Failure)
OR, AS I SEE IT: Life with yet another facet of living with MCS.
I want to live life while dying.
November 2006 . . .
| High or Low | Blood checked for | Reading is: | What should be: |
| H | BUN | 47 . . .A welcomed drop!.(blood, urea, nitrogen – from the breakdown of protein. BUN increases as kidney function decreases.) | 10 – 20 mg/dL |
| Magnesium | 2.2 . . . Back in normal range! As I understand it, too much magnesium can adversely affect heart just as can too much potassium. | 1.7 -2.3 mg/dL | |
| Calcium | 8.8 . . . Holding, and that’s good. | 8.5 – 10.3 mg/dL | |
| L | CO2 | 19 . . . . | 24 – 33 mEq/L |
| H | Creatinine | 5.07 . . . Down ever so slightly . . . at least that’s the right direction, but it is still way too high. | <1.2 mg/dL |
| H | Phosphorus | 5.2 . . . Well that’s up and I haven’t a hint as to why. Now wonder about leaching calcium from bones. | 2.7 – 4.5 mg/dL |
| Potassium | 4.7 . . . Down a little and still normal. This is very good news. | 3.5 – 5.3 mEq/L | |
| L | Sodium | 130 . . . Alas, a drop and now too low.. | 133 – 145 mEq/L |
| L | GFR * | 9 or 11 . . . still have muscle mass so I’ll take the 11! Of course, this is based only on the creatinine reading, so IF for any reason that’s off, so then is the GFR. The larger number is assigned to African-American women, as they are seen as having more muscle mass than caucasians. You can see how “painting with a broad brush” can cause errors. White women aren’t supposed to have muscle mass? Ridiculous! My ethnic origins were quite muscular. | >59 mL/min |
| L | Hemoglobin | 8.6 . . . A big drop. Where are my miracles? | 11.5 – 15 g/dL |
| L | Hematocrit | 26.6 . . Another big drop. What happened? I’ve no clue. I was hopeful last month that my kidneys started producing at least a little erythropoietin, now I wonder. (Erythropoietin is a hormone that is produced by healthy kidneys, which in essence tells the brain to tell the bone marrow to produce the necessary red blood cells. Kidney failure means failure of the production of red blood cells, hence anemia. When one’s red cell counts get too low, one doesn’t get the oxygen delivered to all the organs . . . doctors have an artificial way of stimulating that hormone. I’m trying to handle all this without drugs as long as possible. | 34 – 46 % |
November 2006. Still feeling great. But I’m a little disappointed that my body cannot seem
to handle mixed messages. I want my creatinine and BUN to drop, and yes, they did.
Yeah! However, I’ve been working hard at getting the red blood count to go up, but
hemoglobin and hematocrit numbers dropped also. That’s a decided no-no!
So the medical doctors have an “easy answer” to that little problem. They just give their
patients EPO. You may know one of those products by some ads, for instance Procrit.
http://procrit.com/. But, I see the possible adverse events associated with
synthetic EPO and wonder: WHY should I want more MCS symptoms? Wouldn’t all of
that just be iatrogenesis? (Patient made sick, or prematurely dead, by doctor under the
guise of “healing.”) Fortunately, my internist is willing to walk this journey
with me, monitoring for now, my blood work, to see if I can’t turn things around. With
time and my alternative healing modalities.
I did discover that one can show anemia if one doesn’t take her B-12 properly. And just
guess who was guilty of that this past month. So, back on B12 and folic acid. — barb
| PREVIOUS | TOC | NEXT |
(No Ratings Yet)
Loading...