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My Battle With Kidney Failure

broncos62577

Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 14, 2015
Messages
216
Hey guys, been a long time since I've posted anything but I wanted to tell my story of road to kidney failure.

I'm 41 years old and was a competitive bodybuilder (as some of you may remember). I competed at 230lbs and won the super heavyweight weight class at my last three shows. I haven't competed since November, 2016. I had blookwork done about a month after that show and all was pretty normal. GFR was 70, Creatinine was 1.25 and other values within normal or just off of normal. That was my last blookwork until this year.

In January of this year, I began peeing blood. Not bright red, but kind of a copper color. My ex-wife is a nurse so I told her. She thought it was a UTI and gave me some Cipro. I took it for a while and nothing changed. No other symptoms so I wasn't too worried. Shortly after that began, I noticed I would get bad cramping in my calves when I did cardio. Nothing that was disabling and I fought through it and just kept on. Around that same time, I noticed my endurance while lifting was getting worse. I would get out of breath easier, took me longer to recover between sets and just felt tired. This went on for about a month or so. Then after being on my feet all day coaching my son's baseball team, I noticed when I got home my feet and ankles were swollen bad. Really bad.

I finally got blookwork done. My GFR came back at 33, Creatinine was 2.2 and some other values were off. My hemoglobin was low, red blood cells low, hematocrit low, protein in urine high, blood protein levels very low, albumin very low. I went to my doctor and had some tests done, nothing of significance other than bloodwork. I started a renal diet. Low sodium, low potassium, low protein and had to limit fluid intake.

Then about a month later, it got worse. I woke up and my stomach was so swollen. My penis was even swollen. It looked deformed. I was admitted to the hospital for four days. My albumin was critically low so I had to be transfused. GFR in hospital held at 35.

Since then, I've been following up with a nephrologist. As time went on, my kidneys have worsened until about two months ago, I reached the point of having the diagnosis of kidney failure. Currently, my GFR is 10, creatinine is 7, hemoglobin is 9.5, phosphorus is 6, red blood cells 3.5, hematocrit 29, BUN 53. Anyone that known normal values knows these numbers or horrible. My symptoms have gotten so bad. I can barely walk up the stairs without being winded. My BP is out of control and I'm on three different meds and it's still not controlled. On the meds, my normal BP is in the 130s on average during the day, but at night for some reason, it has drastic swings. It goes from 120s to 170s in the matter of a half hour by doing nothing but sitting. It's scary as hell seeing a BP that high. It reached 188/110 a few times. The first time, I went to the hospital I was so scared. I'm tired all the time and can't do much of anything. It's really depressing. I've lost 50lbs, mostly lean tissue and am a shell of my former self. In addition to the tons of meds I'm on, I'm on Mycophenolate (an immunosuppressant) as I couldn't take the side effects of Prednisone. Sadly, it's not working to slow the progress. I also get bi-weekly shots of EPO to try and get hemoglobin up. It works temporarily but then goes back down. I get so out of breath because I don't transport enough oxygen throughout my body. The other day I was putting something together I bought my boys for Christmas and just doing that I had to take three breaks because I was so out of breath. I was kneeling and screwing in screws. That was all it took.

I have been placed on the transplant list and am still in the preliminary stages of that. It's a pretty long process unfortunately and you can't even begin process until GFR is under 20. I see my nephrologist on Monday to discuss dialysis options. In the matter of a few months, my GFR went from 33 (stage 3 kidney disease) to 10 (stage 5 renal failure). I've been compliant with my diet to the point of obsession (being a competitive bodybuilder for years made that fairly easy), compliant with meds and nothing has helped. The goal was to try to just maintain stage 3 and be alright. My kidneys had other plans.

I tell you this as another illustration of making sure you get bloodwork done regularly. I can't help but wonder had I gotten bloodwork done sooner, I could have seen a slower decline and perhaps changed things sooner to slow the progression. There is a real chance I won't make it to 50 years old. Based on what I've read and have been told, once you start dialysis, the average life is 6-7 years if you don't receive a new kidney during that time.

Any positive thoughts and vibes you can send my way is appreciated. I'm having a very hard time both physically and emotionally right now.
 
Wow man
Scary stuff, praying for u brother, thx for sharing that
Would u mind sharing how hard u pushed the gear and for how long? Blast and cruise style? True trt or inflated mini cycle trt we see so chronically now? Maybe it will open someone else’s eyes and help them down the road as well.
 
Sorry man hope you get that transplant soon. That's just so harsh and sad
 
Sorry to hear about your health issues.Its crazy how your bloodwork wasn’t too off until recently and then just took a nose dive. Do you believe this is related to steroid use ? I mean you said your bloodwork was fine after your show and then over time turned bad fast.Did you monitor your bp in the past ?
 
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First, thank you for the well wishes. I'm actually looking forward to starting dialysis as I've heard that once you start, you actually feel more normal and can live a better life.

I am in no way blaming gear for any of what's happening. I just want to say that first. I'm not one of those "look what happened to me, gear is bad, etc" guys. With that said, I'd been on non-stop since 2009 or so. Blast and cruise, but my cruise was an average of 750mg test week. I never went below 500mg. I didn't blast much, only during prep. Off season, I'd go to 1.5-2g of test per week for 4 months or so, then drop to my 750mg. I've used tren (never longer than 12 weeks and never more than 500mg per week), masteron (pre-contest for last 12 weeks at 600mg per week), oral winny and var for last four weeks (50mg per day of each). I've tried other stuff but those were my staples. I also used diazide as my diuretic pre-contest. Never abused those and actually went lower than was recommended. I dried out by over-hydrating then cutting out water suddenly rather than relying on the drugs.

My PCP always knew of my gear use and when all this went down, he doubted that caused this. Not that he's all knowledgeable, but he used to compete and does know a thing or two about gear.
 
Yes on the BP monitoring question. Always in the 115/70s range. BP problems began in July out of nowhere. Kidney function was still in the 30s. Just suddenly out of control. Now it's unreal how it fluctuates.
 
First, thank you for the well wishes. I'm actually looking forward to starting dialysis as I've heard that once you start, you actually feel more normal and can live a better life.

I am in no way blaming gear for any of what's happening. I just want to say that first. I'm not one of those "look what happened to me, gear is bad, etc" guys. With that said, I'd been on non-stop since 2009 or so. Blast and cruise, but my cruise was an average of 750mg test week. I never went below 500mg. I didn't blast much, only during prep. Off season, I'd go to 1.5-2g of test per week for 4 months or so, then drop to my 750mg. I've used tren (never longer than 12 weeks and never more than 500mg per week), masteron (pre-contest for last 12 weeks at 600mg per week), oral winny and var for last four weeks (50mg per day of each). I've tried other stuff but those were my staples. I also used diazide as my diuretic pre-contest. Never abused those and actually went lower than was recommended. I dried out by over-hydrating then cutting out water suddenly rather than relying on the drugs.

My PCP always knew of my gear use and when all this went down, he doubted that caused this. Not that he's all knowledgeable, but he used to compete and does know a thing or two about gear.

There is a very knowledgeable member here,Muscle96ss. Hopefully he will come into this thread ,he has developed an autoimmune disease that attacked his kidneys( hopefully I am saying this correctly) maybe he can shed some knowledge on your situation. Wishing you the best !
 
Hope you can get the transplant and at least get feeling more normal with dialysis in the short-term. You have many posters and non-posters rooting for you.

I'm no medical expert, but one point I'll disagree with your doctor on is use playing no role when you admitted to cruising on 750mg of testosterone. The body's like a car. If you drive a lot, and like to drive faster than the speed limit, things wear out quicker - belts, fluids, etc. The body's the same way with physiological vs. supraphysiological levels of testosterone. It functions fine at physiological, and can tolerate supraphysiological for periods, but if you keep it at supraphysiological levels for too long things start breaking down. This is why anyone blasting and cruising needs to be truly using TRT doses on their cruises - the body needs a break. Even Superman stays in Clark Kent mode some of the time.
 
Hope you can get the transplant and at least get feeling more normal with dialysis in the short-term. You have many posters and non-posters rooting for you.

I'm no medical expert, but one point I'll disagree with your doctor on is use playing no role when you admitted to cruising on 750mg of testosterone. The body's like a car. If you drive a lot, and like to drive faster than the speed limit, things wear out quicker - belts, fluids, etc. The body's the same way with physiological vs. supraphysiological levels of testosterone. It functions fine at physiological, and can tolerate supraphysiological for periods, but if you keep it at supraphysiological levels for too long things start breaking down. This is why anyone blasting and cruising needs to be truly using TRT doses on their cruises - the body needs a break. Even Superman stays in Clark Kent mode some of the time.

Agreed.

750mg/wk Test then blasting on 1.5g-2g per week for years is why you have kidney failure now. OK, it may have become evident later in your life time, but your usage of AAS is what has expedited this issue.

That said, I wish you nothing but the best and try to stay confident and positive during this time. Becoming stressed will cause more issues. I hope you get the medical attention you need as quickly as possible with your transplant.
 
:( damn dude that sucks, i feel for you. Crazy how you went from decent egfr in 2016 to failure now. What did you do in those two years? Any pain killer abuse? Roid abuse? High bp? Maybe an auto immune disease you have undiagnosed?
 
Sorry to hear this and thanks for sharing with us. This is a good reminder to the rest of us of how poor bloodwork is at assessing kidney damage. All bloodwork really does is show us that the kidneys are currently handling their workload, they could be at 10% function, but if aren't asking them to do much filtering your GFR could still be fine.

While you may never be able to draw a direct connection between AAS and your kidney failure, there is no reason to think there is no connection. At those doses there are lots of things that could go wrong. I respect your desire not to blame AAS too quickly like most do, but kidney failure is the number one side effect a bodybuilder should be worried about, statistically speaking.
 
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:( damn dude that sucks, i feel for you. Crazy how you went from decent egfr in 2016 to failure now. What did you do in those two years? Any pain killer abuse? Roid abuse? High bp? Maybe an auto immune disease you have undiagnosed?

In all likelihood this is a long-term developing issue, kidneys will show a normal GFR until they are almost gone in many cases.
 
Yes on the BP monitoring question. Always in the 115/70s range. BP problems began in July out of nowhere. Kidney function was still in the 30s. Just suddenly out of control. Now it's unreal how it fluctuates.

I'm assuming you used a BP medication while on 2g of test? What was your BP during these blasts?
 
When are you getting a AV fistula Broncho?
I suspect dialysis is going to become a 2x/wk thing for you. I've cared for countless ESRD dialysis patients of all ages over my 14 years as an RN and none of them were AAS abusers. Id say the majority were non compliant diabetics with hypertension. Who else in your family has these issues?
 
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Man, I’m sorry your kidneys are failing. I hope you get a transplant soon. Hopefully the dialysis makes you feel better quickly. Hang in there!
 
I'm assuming you used a BP medication while on 2g of test? What was your BP during these blasts?

No, BP was always great on its own. Ironic in that it was something I was always proud of haha. Even on my heaviest cycles (short term) my BP never got over 130/high 70s. That would be 500mg tren, 1g test, 600mg mast. Only thing that was ever out of line were my lipids, which are fine now (on Lipitor). One of the effects of the kidney issues is crazy lipid panel. In fact, my first bloodwork I got this year (to address kidneys) had a total cholesterol of 370 with LDL of 250. That was directly related to the kidney issues. On 40mg Lipitor and total cholesterol is 140 with LDL 95.
 
Have you been tested for lupus or any other auto immune diseases ? Have they done a renal biopsy?
 
When are you getting a AV fistula Broncho?
I suspect dialysis is going to become a 2x/wk thing for you. I've cared for countless ESRD dialysis patients of all ages over my 14 years as an RN and none of them were AAS abusers. Id say the majority were non compliant diabetics with hypertension. Who else in your family has these issues?

My nephrologist has been holding off saying he wanted to wait until my GFR was at 8 before dialysis (it had been holding at 15 for last two months). I see him again on Monday and am going to insist we get started. My quality of living is just horrible right now and I'm so sick of feeling sick. Like I said, I have a friend that is a doctor and he's on dialysis and feels great most of the time. He's back to the gym and can live normal life. I'm hoping I can do the peritoneal dialysis at home, but I don't know how that's determined.
 
Have you been tested for lupus or any other auto immune diseases ? Have they done a renal biopsy?

Yes, no lupus. I was diagnosed with IGA nephropathy (sp?) via biopsy. Even with that, the decline of my kidney function has been remarkably fast according to my neph. In most cases, use of meds to control symptoms will slow down its progression, but it's unclear if my body is just not as responsive so the progression has been faster than usual. When first diagnosed, my neph figured I'd have years before it declined more from mid 30s. Wish he was right about that.
 

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