Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Nephrologist

We had an appointment with the nephrologist last week. I was more than a little concerned when I got the call on Thursday to set up the appointment. I had to ask her what a nephrologist was! When she said kidneys, I began to get concerned that something was up with her kidneys. But I set it aside until today, figuring if it were major, we wouldn't be waiting five days for an appointment (I would hope!)

I totally had forgotten that she had gotten a referral way back last June. In her urine test her calcium levels had come up high. Which is something linked to kidney stones. We had gotten an ultrasound of her kidneys at the time and I never heard anything more of it.

The appointment today was related to that test. Her calcium urate (sp?) levels were 2.0, the high end of normal is 0.6, so it's definately high. Too much calcium gathers up in crystals and so on and so forth. It's not dangerous, but it can increase the likelihood of UTIs, kidney stones, etc. No fun to have a 5 year old with a kidney stone, I'm thinking.

This most likely has nothing to do with her condition. It looks like it's a genetic thing. My husband had his first kidney stone at 20, which is very uncommon, and his grandfather had a lot of problems with stones. So we're going to get some more urine tests on Brianna, and do yearly renal ultrasounds to make sure all is well. And we're getting a test for Garin as well, just to see if it's affecting him.

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