I was visited by the dietician on Friday. She talked me through the dietary issues and the changes I need to make in the short term, medium and long term.
Short Term
The next few weeks until the new kidney kicks in
- Keep salt levels low
- Avoid high potassium foods such as bananas, avocados and tomatoes
- Avoid high phosphate foods / drinks such as
- Coca Cola / Pepsi (black drinks
- Packaged bread products (crumpets, muffins etc)
- Packaged cold meats eg Ham
- Too much dairy
- Too much water
I am taking a phosphate binder with each meal which will help mitigate the issue. I have been eating the potassium foods in reasonable moderation but will be stricter in the short term.
Medium Term
Once the new kidney is active (awake) and up to six months.
These instructions must be followed
- Food needs to be cooked properly.
- Hands need to be washed before and after preparing and before eating.
- Worktops need to kept clean as with chopping boards.
- Clean cloths and dishcloths with separate towel for hands.
- The person preparing food should not have a gastrointestinal bug.
- Well cooked meat – so no medium rare steaks, duck, venison
- Good should be eaten within 1 hour of cooking
- Leftovers chilled within 1-2 hours
- Reheated food must be piping hot
- Avoid reheated rice
- Do not eat past it’s use by date
- Eat food within two days of best before date
- Fridge must be between 0 and 5°C
- Food should be chilled / frozen immediately after they are brought home.
- Fridge should not be overloaded to allow proper air circulation within.
- Frozen food should not be refrozen after thawing
- Raw and ready to eat food should be kept separated during storage.
- Do not wash raw meat
- Separate chopping boards for raw meat or poultry
- Drink only pasteurised milk o UHT
- Avoid Deli counter cheeses and meats
- Avoid Camembert, Brie, soft goats cheese, Danish Blue,Gorgonzola, Roquefort
- Homemade ice cream, Mr Whippy etc
- Bio and probiotic yoghurts
- Avoid eating out and Takeaway foods for 6-8 weeks
- Avoid Buffet food unless front of queue – no seconds
- Avoid Restaurants where rice is routinely reheated (Indian /Chinese). Insist on Fresh cooked food.
- Do not eat eggs with runny yolks ( for me that means all eggs as I don’t like hard yolks)
- This includes food with raw egg such as mousses, homemade ice cream, meringue certain sauces, raw cake batter
- Avoid Liver pate
Fluid restrictions cease and I should drink 2L of fluid a day.
The phosphate rules above no longer apply and I will need a high phosphate diet after my kidney kicks in
- Lean meat / offal
- Eggs (given the rules above)
- Milk
- Cheese ( Cheddar, Red Leicester , Edam, Gouda, Parmesan, Stilton, cooked blue cheese, cottage cheese, cream cheese, mozzarella, paneer, halloumi, hard goats cheese, cheese spreads)
- Yoghurt
- Drinking chocolate
To maintain bone strength I will need to up calcium intake as well as phosphate. This includes
- 200ml milk
- 30g cheese
- 120g yoghurt
- 30g breakfast cereal
Many of these foods are also high in Vitamin D
After six months the remaining food restrictions can be relaxed – just in time for Christmas 🎅🏻🎄
Long Term
Many of the short term and medium term rules will still apply eg food prep, but my good restrictions will largely disappear.
Some however will apply permanently
Due to interaction with my medications I will never be allowed to eat Grapefruit, Starfruit or Pomelo. Given I rarely ate star fruit and never ate Pomelo the only real sacrifice is Grapefruit
Battling the Bone Breaker 