So ask yourself this: do you want to bring blood creatine levels down, or do you want to have healthy kidneys? I don’t say that to imply that they’re mutually exclusive, but moreso to highlight that lab values are just that: they’re lab values. They’re not a proxy for health: simply a tool we can use to look for INDICATORS of poor health. From there, we actually LOOK at the kidneys and see what they’re up to. If they look good, then we take the lab values for what they are: abnormal.
Because I went through this whole circus, elevated creatine levels, liver enzymes, etc. These CAN be indications of poor kidney health, yeah, but they can ALSO be indications of training hard, having muscle, and eating meat. So I got an ultrasound of my kidney and they determined that there was nothing wrong with it, and now my medical records say “Patient possess an abnormal amount of muscle mass for a mid-30s (at the time) male”. And, consequently, if I was black, they would have included that datapoint as well.
Get the ultrasound and go from there. If your kidneys actually ARE in poor health, definitely a good idea to address that. But don’t just chase lab values for the sake of chasing lab values. Take it from me: that is EXACTLY how I completely crashed my testosterone: all in the pursuit of getting the “best score” for my blood lipids. I completely ignored how I was FEELING and all the symptoms I was experiencing of poor health because I was so fixated on “getting my labs right”. The labs are just there to indicate to us that we may need to look deeper: they aren’t health itself.
Part of my reason for asking was due to me trying to change my life insurance policy and unable to do so with the results the way they are. I honestly don’t care what the numbers say but unfortunately some administrator at a desk apparently does.
Getting the ultrasound done and can hopefully get the doctor to satisfy their requirements buy saying that I am super jacked.
Mate I have no idea how much potassium. I don’t track anything and I don’t take any potassium supplements. I am all red meat, eggs and rice. Only other thing I take is fish oil, coffee and sometimes a pre workout.
Hard workouts will show up as issues with kidney function.
Anytime I know I have to do bloodwork I take a Deload week. Depending on how hard your Deload weeks are, you might want to consider taking couples days completely off prior to blood draws.
I have seen it personally in my own bloodwork years ago and that’s when I figured it out.
This is good information to have. As someone who can now flex her delts and quads on purpose - as long as I have a mirror so I can get the right thing going - I’m probably at risk of all sorts of strength training issues. I’ll note this one.
I think we’re saying markers of poor kidney function vs results, right?
Anyway, I went through it and I was pretty concerned… who wants to end up on dialysis? They had me do a 24-hour urinalysis first, then ultrasound, because in the US the hospital system incentivizes PCP offices per referral. There were no issues there and we all went along with our lives.
When I left that hospital system practice and started seeing a private PCP, he didn’t care about external referrals from a financial point of view (that’s not how he makes his money). He looked at me next to the eGFR number and said, that’s exactly what we’d expect, and had no other concerns. In context of total labs, there was no other reason to suspect kidney damage (no markers of infection, diabetes, etc). N of 1, and I’m just choosing the diagnosis I prefer, we might say, but I actually moved enough to experience this exact cycle twice.
Has the eGFR or creatinine number changed over the 3 years or just stayed at the low number? If it’s stable, that’s another indicator that you probably needn’t worry.
I don’t know how to help in your insurance world. I would imagine doing the ultrasound and getting the appropriate opinion in your records is the answer? Or get older! As I’ve aged my numbers have come closer to expected range without my actual numbers changing.
Blood was taken first thing in the morning - 8:30am The tests are fasted so I haven’t had any food and very little water before. My doctor did comment that dehydration was a factor.
