What does it mean when the doctors say "your kidneys are borderline"?

Question

I am asking for my mom. She is elderly and said the doctor told her this over the phone. What does this mean? She also warned her about switching her to insulin if she keeps getting the same test results.

Is this bad news?

Answer 1

They come from Mexico, just across the borderline

Answer 2

The doctor means that her kidneys have been damaged to a point where their function is barely able to support the body's requirements. At this point they still can, but any more damage to her kidneys and your mother would go into renal failure. If this happens the body will not be able to function for very long unless she goes to dialysis. The doc is saying that it is your mother's diabetes that is causing the damage to her kidneys. From what she says it sounds like your mom's diabetes has not been very well controlled. She is thinking of starting her on insulin to better control your mother's blood sugars and minimize any further damage to the kidney.

Answer 3

Yeah, that's bad news.

That means that your mother has not kept her diabetes under control, and now she has kidney damage.  It MIGHT repair itself, but it most likely won't.

What happens is that the extra sugar in the blood attaches to the red blood cells. This make like little crystals sticking out all over the red blood cell.  These "crystals" act like little knives, slicing and dicing the blood vessels as they pass through. This is much worse in the capillaries, which at no larger than a red blood cells anyway.  

In order to filter out the poisons in the blood, the kidneys are just loaded with capillaries! So the little sugar-crystal-knives do HUGE amounts of damage to the kidneys.  This damage cause the kidneys not to function correctly, and the resulting scar tisue and micro blood clots causes the blood pressure to increase.

Eventually, the kidneys fail.  When that happens dialysis is necessary, or the patient will die.

ALSO, the kidneys control how much red blood cells are produced.  So patients with kidney failure are often anemic. This make surgery difficult. It also make you feel really tired.

Your mother MUST watch her blood sugars VERY close.  She MUST be taking her "finger stick readings" 3-4 times a day.  I am really surprised that the doctor didn't prescribe insulin to start immediately.  The kidney problems show that the diabetes is already out of control, and the ONLY hope that she has is to get it under STRICT control NOW!

Get more information here:

http://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/ckd/...

Answer 4

If the kidneys fail, the body will gain poisons that can become fatal, and she may have to use dialysis machines to clean the blood. This is probably not a good sign for her future,but the doctor is the expert, we only give opinions and guesses.

Answer 5

My mom has 20% of her kidneys working she is a diabetic and on insulin the Dr. says if she eats properly she will be fine but remember you cannot get your kidneys back once they fail they are done with. Just keep her eating properly and do what you can for her, my mom just wants to do nothing all day so I just let her be herself it is not worth it to fight with her to do the right things.