nutrition: getting the facts on the kidney diet

   When my mom told me about her kidney disease one of the first questions I asked was did she have a special diet that she needed to follow. She told me her nephrologyst just told her to watch her protein intake, keeping it to about 6-9g each day, and
she now also needed to be careful not to take in more than 2000mg of potassium a day as well. Other than that, nothing.
   With this in mind I started to search the web for recipes and cookbooks. I wasn't having much luck, but was coming across
some books and articles about a kidney diet. These spoke of how with the right changes one could potentially delay the decrease in their kidney function and also stave of dialysis, in some patients indefinitely if caught in the early stages. Wild claims to say the least, I know.  My interest was piqued, but I was very sceptical!
   Thus the research began. I only looked at sites that where either written by a doctor, nurse, professor, or was supported by one. At first I didn't find a whole lot, but what I did find seemed to support these wildly optimistic claims. The better I got at refining my search the more information I found on this theory. Turns out it isn't much of a theory anymore. Though not always a sure thing, and there is still the test of time for a lot of it, it appears that if one follows the dietary guidelines your dietitian and nephrologyst set for you, you can greatly reduce the load your over worked kidneys are carrying. Assuming your doctor mentions these facts. My moms didn't, and talked about a dietitian, but only as an afterthought and not putting a whole lot of insistence behind it...irresponsible I thought considering someones life was in her hands. You can imagine my confusion when I thought back to the previous conversation with my mom about her diet restrictions, or lack there of. I remembered how her doctor, other than a few suggestions didn't seem to put quite the same emphasis on diet as all these other people seemed to. Quite intelligent people, like a professor at Yale university, and several from johns Hopkins, even some of the sites her nephrologysts office themselves had given me had strict guidelines to follow. So how could it be that HER doctor didn't seem to get this memo. I was furious!!!! I called my mom and asked to speak with the doctor, she made and appointment.
    After the meeting, and a conversation with my mom about her previous nephrologysts I came away with the feeling that just shy of waiting for you to hit the transplant point, most doctors follow the, call me when you're ready for dialysis and then we can do something practice. I almost lost my sh*@#t. Had any of these doctors put more emphasis on this restrictive diet approach and less on drugs and wait and see approach she may not have ever gotten to the transplant /dialysis stage. Please take this as a warning....BE YOUR OWN ACTIVIST!!!! Make sure you do your research and push your doctors...hard, and if your still not satisfied, change doctors.