Awareness for Kidney Diseases

We caught our daughter's kidney disease as a fluke (aka blessing). 

We caught it by doing a urinalysis.

It is my mission to raise awareness for kidney diseases and any other type of disease

that can be caught just by doing a urinalysis! 

I also hope to educate you on why a urinalysis needs to be done every year.

PLEASE! Parents, if you child's doctor does not do a yearly urinalysis as part of their check-up it is up to you to ask for one.  As women we pee in a cup once a year as part of our yearly check up at the OB's office, it is a normal standard procedure.  A urinalysis can catch so much, see this link for a run down of all the things they can check for; just by putting a dip stick in a cup of urine.  They can do more testing by looking under a microscope too.  This type of test is a way of early detection, don't you want to know if your child is 100% healthy. 

ASK for a urinalysis for your child every year.

It is all done in office and you get the results back that day,

it is a simple non-invasive way to know your child is healthy.

MGPN Type 1 is the kidney disease that my daughter has, this disease has very little signs, so little that it could have gone undetected for a few years.  By catching this early we have been able to get her on medication to help with her kidneys.  Her kidney doctor told us, "It is hard to put her in this category because she appears to be so healthy, most kids that have this disease don't look healthy and are not healthy."  When he told us this, I praised God that my mother's instinct was to take her to the dr because I thought she might have a UTI. 

Early detection is key!  I cant imagine the situation we would be in if this disease would have been caught a year from now.  Her sweet little kidneys would have been damaged more then they are now and it scares me to think of what stage she could be in.  Thank you Lord that we caught this so early!   

Visit this website for ways to protect your kidneys.

PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILD GET A URINALYSIS DONE EVERY YEAR! 

Especially if you have any type of disease that runs in your family.

(As far as we know there is no family history of kidney disease in our families)

Now that I have made you say urinalysis 8 times here are some pictures to help you see the difference between healthy and non-healthy urine and what it can look like!

Healthy Urine

of course healthy urine can look different with the variations of yellow.

Savanna's urine below

This was her urine from the March 8th 24 hour urine collection.  As you can see it is darker in color so this could mean that she is leaking more blood, her protein looks the same as the picture below.  They can't measure blood loss in the urine and her protein loss was 1904mg. 

Savanna's urine below

The above picture was taken January 9, 2012.  It looks like the color is better than the in the picture below.  This urine still has a bit of a brown or reddish tint but defiantly more yellow then the picture below.  AND the most exciting part, not much white foamy stuff lurking in her urine, which means her loss of protein is less!  As of  the Jan. 13th she is losing 1920 mg of protein a day.

Savanna's urine below

Her urine has a reddish tint to it, which is the blood that is leaking from her kidneys.  The white foamy looking stuff is the protein that is also leaking out of her kidneys.
This pictures was taken November 2011. 
This collection of urine she was losing 2193 mg of protein a day.