Is there a link between low-carb diets and kidney infections?

**Forgiven** · September 16th, 2011, 07:36 AM

Okay, this is going to sound crazy, and for the most part, I think my mil is a bit crazy, but I thought I'd come on here and ask. For the record, my mil is on the Dukan diet and also doing a low-carb thing, actually, I ate more carbs than her, so I think maybe her concern is not to put down the HCG diet, but more about fear for the both of us.

But here's the deal. I was enjoying my second day (Saturday, Sept. 10th) of P4 until a little after noon. Now, I woke up feeling achey, but I kept trying to explain the pains away. In the afternoon I got extremely dizzy and light headed and had to lie down. I ended up with a high fever and extreme chills. After that fever broke, I was still not feeling well and ended up with another high fever with extreme chills in the evening. On Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:00 am with a horrifying fever and the worst case of the chills ever. I've never had fevers this extreme, this violent in my entire life. The fevers continued all day on Sunday and then on Monday I thought I was doing okay until the afternoon and again, horrible fever and chills.

I went to an urgent care center and was diagnosed with a kidney infection. Thing is, I never had any symptoms of a UTI, which is what they said caused the kidney infection.

So now my mil is on my case about it being from doing the HCG diet and because I was eating low-carb that that is why I got the infection.

I'm extremely sick. Even now, four days after being treated and without fevers, the pain is severe. I'm on strict bedrest, which sucks as I homeschool three kids, and can barely move around without pain.

I was one of the lucky ones though, according to the urgent care nurse. She said that most people who have pyelonephritis (which is the infection I have) end up admitted to the hospital. Apparently, I caught it early enough to where they could release me to my home.

So, has anyone ever heard that low-carb diets can cause this type of sickness? Has anyone else here doing this diet come down with this. I don't believe it's the diet. I think I was just unlucky and got a UTI that didn't have any symptoms and it just got bad -- real bad -- and ended up infecting my kidneys.

But, for the sake of my mil and arguing with her, I thought I'd ask and see if you have heard the same rumor as her or if she heard some foolish nonsense and just won't leave me alone about it.

Oh, and I feel horrible because I've been eating anything and everything. Horrible. I know I'm gaining weight, but I gained 2 lbs just from being in the urgent care center that day. 2 lbs from all the saline solution they put in me and all the meds. I want comfort food, and that's it. I have no energy to make anything real, so I've been resorting to quick, easy, comfort yummies. I'm eating toast, peanut butter, and banana right now.

I want to get right back on the right path when I start to feel better and I know I can. I lost too much weight to go back to eating crap. Besides, even thought I eat whatever, I never finish anything as it doesn't taste very good. LOL

**desertgirl** · September 16th, 2011, 08:18 AM

This from the US Dept of Health, National Kidney & Urologic Diseases
Information Clearinghouse (NKUDIC):

"What causes pyelonephritis?

Possible causes of kidney infection include the following:

infections in the bladder
use of a catheter to drain urine from the bladder
use of a cystoscope to examine the bladder and urethra
surgery on the urinary tract
conditions such as prostate enlargement and kidney stones that prevent the efficient flow of urine from the bladder
defects or abnormalities in the urinary tract that block the flow of urine"

So I don't think it's a low carb diet. Did they look for kidney stones?

**clairebear** · September 16th, 2011, 12:08 PM

Hope you get better!! My teenage daughter had this and did end up in the hospital for 4 days while they battled the infection with iv's.

She was 15 and had a bladder infection but without any symptoms and yes it went to her kidneys - She was home from school with a fever (only symptom) and by the time I got home that night I found her curled up on the floor in such pain she had to be carried to the car.

And no she was not on any type of diet - she is naturally thin (takes after her dad's side of the family) So I guess as we were told some people just have a higher threshhold for pain and that is maybe why her bladder infection wasn't an issue with her.

**bevvy5** · September 16th, 2011, 10:05 PM

I'm not sure about causing your kidney infection but you should definitely be somewhat careful about too much protein until they confirm that your filtration rate your GFR, is up in normal ranges. Take it from the wife of a dialysis patient - you don't want to fool around with anything that will damage your kidneys.

**zoey** · September 18th, 2011, 12:02 PM

I can't really answer for sure about the connection, BUT I recently completed 39 days of a RX HCG vlcd, and during the last week and the first week of P3, I had soooooooo much pain in my left kidney that a couple of times I almost went to the emergency room. Due to the cost of that I tried to treat it myself. I had been drinking a lot of Smart water for the potassium, etc., so in the event I could have been getting a build up of minerals in the kidneys, I started drinking close to a gallon of distilled (100% pure) water and taking a lot of cranberry pills. I was finally able to get over it BUT now I am on approximately day 40 of P3 and I had intended to do a round 2 of hcg and the vlcd, now I am pretty scared to try it again and I'm not sure what the best thing to do would be to go on a different type of diet to lose the remaining 15 pounds I need to use.

**Kate99** · September 18th, 2011, 12:25 PM

I had a kidney infection after childbirth (from a catheter) and I was awful so I really sympathize! I don't know of any way hcg or low carb could cause it. I would suggest to anyone struggling with UTI issues to look into d-mannose... Tons more effective than cranberry at cleaning ecoli out of your system!

**Rhibert** · September 18th, 2011, 06:44 PM

Best I could find:

http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/d...-experts/10229

Thread: Is there a link between low-carb diets and kidney infections?

Thread Tools

Display

Is there a link between low-carb diets and kidney infections?

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions