Wait Till You See My eGFR!

I hate to brag (no, actually, I’m proud of it!), but today I had my best creatinine and eGFR test results since I donated my kidney to my son 14 years ago. Creatinine reflects the amount of toxins in the blood (lower is obviously better), and GFR is an overall measure of kidney function (the clinical term is glomerular filtration rate). The little “e” before GFR just means estimated. The exact measure requires a 24-hour urine collection, which I vividly remember doing for my donor evaluation.

For the estimate, they use a formula based on creatinine, age, sex, and a few other factors. My creatinine is 0.75 (normal is under 1.00 for females, and mine’s been under 1.00 for about the past 5 years but never this good)! My eGFR is 80 (normal is over 60). To give you an idea, kidney failure–meaning the imminent need for dialysis or transplant–is below 15.

Given that it’s natural for kidney function to decrease as we age, at 72 years old, I would expect mine to be lower. Plus, as a living donor, there’s no cause for concern even if it’s slightly under 60 (categorized technically as “stage 3 of kidney disease”).

Those stages are based on people with two kidneys and/or patients who are continually losing kidney function. So, I wasn’t at all concerned a few years back when my eGFR was 59 but my creatinine was under 1.00.

And now 0.75! So, if you or anyone you know is worried about living donors’ losing too much kidney function, please tell them about my results. (And, no, I don’t have a water bottle attached to me all day, though I’m not knocking those who do.)