[carol5]

I have been 2 weeks on 50mgs of aza and have now increased to 100mgs, i have sle, fibro,raynauds and recently costochondritis, anyway i have hade bloods taken each week for the last 2 weeks and the results ar through, does anyone know what other things to look out for for kidney disease as my GFR is 78, also my ESR last week was 8 and this week it is 15 i am starting to feel achy and painful again, but this week they didn't do a GFR i think they left it out by mistake, should i chase my gp( who isn't very helpful), and in general what are the ones i shoud be keeping my eyes on, any advice would be welcome
thanks carol

 

[Maia]

Usually they are looking out for other things in the blood monitoring while on Imuran/aza... but to answer your question a GFR of 78 is not too concerning to doctors, it has to go below 60 for there to be any real concern and even then there usually must be protein and/or blood in urine also to have any sort of kidney disease diagnosis. With lupus kidney issues, usually there is a LOT of protein loss in the urine and there may not be much effect on things like GFR at first in particular. Other tests of kidney function are creatinine levels (inversely related to GFR & basically the same thing as GFR in different units) and the BUN if elevated can indicate kidney trouble.

Here the sed rate is not considered elevated until it reaches 20 or more for a woman of middle age. That can vary though and a few labs will have lower values. I don't doubt though that you can personally feel a difference between 7 and 15.

Hope this helps.