good thing I opened that packet of paperwork before my doctor's appointment next week. Apparently I was supposed to get bloodwork done before showing up. Guess who's leaving for a 1:40pm blood draw today.

the last kidney doctor I went to was like:

"How you feeling?"

me: "alright, I guess."

doctor:"Good, give me blood and urine. See you in six months."

This is the same dude who I had been seeing before my primary care physician got acess to their lab work and discovered I was in the middle of CKD in December, nearly a full year after I started seeing this dude.

@da_667 I feel that one. At least our lab readily takes walk-ins so I can go early. Pre-coffee and food me does not appreciate having to wait until later in the day to get poked.

@da_667 Yikes!

@da_667 hopefully not a fasting required one

@arrjay I can't speak for every CKD practice, but the one I use to went to does not require fasting for a blood panel and urine analysis.

Now, for a full spectrum blood test your primary care physician would give you, yeah, I have to fast for those.

@arrjay my usual routine is on check-up with the doc, assume that I'll be doing blood work and stop eating around 8pm the previous day, for my appointment the next morning. Which is fine, that's become my routine to stop eating past 8pm.

@mattblaze life sucks, I didn't know how bad it was, but I'm more well-informed now. At last check, it was at stage 3 (stage 5 is full kidney failure, and requires dialysis). Which means the damage is manageable with extremely close control of diet, and in general being healthier.

I've lost 56 lbs since December, and have taking a much more active role in eating healthier things. So, I'm on the right track, and just hoping it isn't too little too late.

@mattblaze according to internet resources, the biggest thing I have to do aside from already managing calories, sugar, and fat to help improve my A1C and Cholesterol numbers, is managing sodium, phosphates, and excessive potassium. Sodium is the biggest hurdle, requiring a lot of preparation and planning to get no salt added variants of things that I enjoy eating.

@da_667 ah, the docs here tend to off-site bloodwork, so I get to cope with the vague "you should do it sometime in two weeks before the office visit"

And...Usually forget until 3 days before, so booking labs sucks.

@arrjay this packet of paperwork had been sitting on my desk for a month. Nobody had mentioned "get this shit done now, and schedule the bloodwork inside immediately."

@da_667
Low salt is the hardest. Its. In. EVERYTHING. As you already know. We Americans really like our salt.
@mattblaze

@chillybot @da_667 @mattblaze My sodium levels started going down when I started eating potatoes without regret. I read somewhere that it has to do with all the potassium but IDK. Point is that it's all weird and kudos for putting in the work to find what works for you. 🍻

@da_667 I can highly recommend the Penn Medicine nephrology practice (at the main hospital), if a Philly doctor is in any way convenient for you.

@da_667 fuckin medical admin bullshit, I swear it's responsible for a billion years of cumulative human suffering.

@da_667 @mattblaze The only real solution (that I've found) to the low-sodium problem is to make everything yourself from ingredients. Use as few pre-packaged foods as possible (this includes like canned vegetables or pre-made tomato sauce). It's a huge pain in the ass at first, but after a couple months you start getting into the swing of it and it gets easier.

@Mustardfacial (removed matt because I don't want to spam him) yeah, I'm discovering that for myself as well. Its doable, but it requires effort and documenting everything that I'm putting in my mouth, or will eat a given day.

Before about a month or so ago, I had been giving little notion to my sodium intake. Now? Everything that I can do that has "no salt added" or can be prepared with as little sodium is possible is what I use.

No salt added tomato sauce, No salted added diced tomatoes, fresh, frozen or no salt added vegetables, lean proteins, no salt seasonings, or very light sodium seasonings (e.g. montreal steak seasoning, just the tiniest 1/8th teaspoon of seasoning salt, or the salt/pepper/garlic spice mix from kender) I've been able to consistently stay under 2300mg of sodium per day.

It just takes a lot of prep, and the discipline to stay the course.

@Mustardfacial Oh yeah, and I have to avoid most soup, any sausages, any deli meats, all forms of queso, but it is entirely doable.

@chillybot @mattblaze seriously it is fucking hard. Especially for most fast food meals.

can't do queso
can't do deli meat
can't do sausage
can't do soup
can't do ramen

Have to be extremely picky, and check out the nutrition values for everything and make good choices.

@mattblaze much appreciated. I'm in southeast michigan, and have since got a referral to a new place. I'm hoping for the best, and better communication going forward. If it comes down to that, then its good to know I have that option.

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze happy to kick down more recipes for super easy to make stuff where you control all the ingredients!

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze This might be a stupid question, but like...

Are there... "salt eating" foods? Soups or something that are packed with ingredients that either minimize or could help somehow? Potassium-rich stuff maybe?

@Viss @chillybot @mattblaze I'm taking any recipes I can get my hands on. Got a really good one for homemade vegetable stock, homemade boiled beans, got my stuffed bell pepper and chili recipes, ground turkey tacos, Ezekiel bread burgers, and Caribbean black beans.

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze if you can make one or two different types of bread, you can just skip the salt in that dough - its not required, and if you can make like, dinner rolls and a basic loaf? suddenly you have ...

ᶠᵒᵒᵒᵒᵈ ˢᵘᵇˢᵗʳᵃᵗᵉ

@da_667 @chillybot @mattblaze

once you can do burger/sausage buns, and loaves, suddenly stuff like tuna salad sammiches happen, and turkey/chicken burgers/meatballs. you can take your stuffed bell pepper recipe and prolly chuck turkey meatballs into that and call it a meatball sammich. it sorta turns into lego after a certain point

@Viss totally. my stuffed pepper recipe uses ground turkey, and cauliflower rice to substitute for brown rice, and everything is no salt added. I usually have a metric assload of leftovers and I'll usually just throw it in a bowl and turn it into a soup for the next day.

I'll usually have a full bowl of the dice tomato/ tomato sauce/ v8 mixture that makes for an amazing low sodium tomato soup on its own.

@Viss ground turkey, boneless porkchops, and boneless skinless chicken breast is life around here.

I'm definitely a foodie at heart, and I'm still living pretty well. Just with a lot more care.

@da_667 The prep and pre-planning you have to do are the most arduous parts imo. I'm not Gordon Ramsey, I'm not waking up at 5am to go to the fish market to get fresh salmon. But it does really benefit to have some idea of what your week's dinners are going to be when you go shopping so you can plan teh fresh veg and meat intake without having to rely on pre-frozen/pre-packaged stuff.

I used the Sidekick app for a good while to help with this because it's really good about giving you recipe's that only take 20-mins to cook for the whole week and then building you a shopping list of exactly what and how much of it you need.

@da_667 have you ever considered a chicken/turkey ballotine? it looks super cool, and its pretty easy to make :D

@Viss > looks up ballotine

^{I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter}

@da_667 its dead simple. the hardest part is cutting the chicken/turkey into the correct shape. then you sorta stuff it with whatever you want, give it an egg wash (if you want a little crispy layer on the outside) and bake it. if you make one big enough, hey slice a bit off that and chuck it onto one of your dinner rolls, with some low sodium gravy or sauce or something and you got yourself a pretty fancy slider!

@da_667

AND I ALWAYS SAY:

if you can debone a chicken

you can debone a person!

so learn how to debone a chicken and practice a few times! You'll find a ballotine is way way easier to do if youre doing it to an entire chicken :D

i learned by watching chef pepin a very long time ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN8xn152NXA

@da_667 but i guess if youre doing a whole chicken its a galentine, not a ballotine? but same sorta deal. bones go out, moopsy style, noms go in, not.. uh.. moopsy style.

@da_667 fun fact: before 2021, i was planning a foodie infosec con in sf with a dozen people. the idea was that we round up some sponsors and rent a test kitchen, the folks who can do cookery all volunteer to do various bits of cheffery, and folks teach others how to cook and talk shop and share intel over kitchen faffery time. but it evaporated, sadly. woulda been a cool idea tho

@Viss that sounds amazing!

@Viss sad it didn't work out. I think the closest thing we got to that is like... pancakescon? The idea that you do a double-feature presentation about a security subject you want to cover, then a life skills/hobby presentation you enjoy.

@da_667 right? i thought so too. but.. influencers.

@chillybot @da_667 @mattblaze obligatory plug that Penzeys spices has some solid No Salt blends.

But, yeah, salt finds its way into the weirdest things. Like, poultry products (esp ground turkey from what I’ve seen, but also found this in chicken breasts) will have salt added. Just to plump everything up.

@da_667 yeah, i presented at the first one and made crepes, but after that suddenly every time i submit my submission got lost or was overlooked, so i quit

@da_667 @mattblaze Oh shit, I just saw a clip about something that could help. It’s a YouTube short (eww) but there is a technique to boost salt flavor with mild electrical currents https://youtube.com/shorts/8vEOgYh8PjM

@da_667 @mattblaze also avoid the fuck out of pink salts. They’re usually mined from potash deposits in Pakistan. They’re KCl, and I nearly had a health scare related to them a few years back.

@Lando @mattblaze yeah, I've learned that potassium chloride is a "substitute for salt", and that for kidney disease is really fucking bad, to avoid it at all costs. Salt blends, MSG, other low sodium things are generally okay.

@Lando @mattblaze fascinating! I wonder if I can order internationally.

@TindrasGrove @chillybot @mattblaze yeah, I'm always extremely careful to read nutrition labels for meats, because I've heard the same thing -- that some companies pump the meat with saline to make the weight and size bigger.

Pork chops are like 55mg per 4 oz, the ground turkey we use is like 85mg per 4oz, and boneless skinless chicken is like 75mg per 4oz.

Its manageable, and I'm finding that staying under 2300mg sodium per day is something that is very workable so long as I'm well prepared and know what I'm doing in advance.