I'm sure you all are aware that your Kidneys are normally a paired organ, having a right and a left Kidney, which controls and regulates within your body all of your fluid levels, as well as your electrolyte balance. They also, with the help of the Adrenal Glands, regulate your blood pressure balance. Since your two main electrolytes, sodium and potassium, are so vital to your overall health, it's important to keep your Kidneys functioning at their highest level possible. This will help maintain a normal blood pressure range. For help with your blood pressure, please contact the office so we can educate you on how to naturally control your blood pressure. 

Another function of the Kidney relates to its role in regulating fluid balance within the Large Intestine. The relationship these two organs share is based upon maintaining the delicate balance between having too much fluid (as expressed with swelling and or diarrhea) versus having too little fluid (as seen with constipation) within the system. So when the body has too much fluid, the Kidney will tell the Large Intestine to get rid of the excess either through the bowels itself or through a related organ associated with the Large Intestine, the Lungs (through breathing) or the Skin (through sweating). This can be brought back into balance for most people through drinking the right amount of water on a daily basis. 



Proper Amounts of Water

The easiest way to maintain the health of your Kidneys is to be sure to drink adequate amounts of water. Since it's your Kidneys that regulate and control all fluid balance within your body, maintaining proper fluid levels is important to keep your Kidneys functioning in a healthy fashion. This is especially true in the Winter months during the times it is cold. Dehydration, when it is cold out is very common, yet difficult for most to appreciate. Since your body will be doing everything it can to stay warm, the metabolism of different parts of your body will increase in an effort to maintain warmth. And it is because of this reason that an increase in metabolism will cause you to lose water in the process. Witness this when you breathe out while outside and notice the condensation. All of that is essentially water being lost by the body. Therefore, be sure to drink adequate amounts of water on a daily basis. 

What is the proper amount of water to consume daily? 

Ideally, one quart of water for every 50 lbs. of weight, every day. This means the standard 8 - 8 oz. glasses would be sufficient if you weighed a mere 100 lbs. Since most adults do not drink that much, you figure a pint of water (16 oz.) for every 25 lbs. So if you weigh 125 lbs, you would require 5 pints (80 oz.) daily, 150 lbs. would require 3/4 of a gallon (96 oz.) daily, 175 lbs. 7 pints or 112 oz. daily, and if you weigh 200 lbs. you'll need 1 gallon of water a day. This will keep your Kidneys flushed and help to decrease the stress on your whole metabolic system. It will also help to maintain ideal metabolism supporting a more ideal weight. In fact, if you consume the correct amount of water each day, this will go a long way towards helping to maintain your ideal body weight.

You may be thinking, "That seems like a lot of water to drink. I don't know if I can drink that much." 

Sure, initially drinking this much water may seem like an impossible feat. But if you slowly increase your water volume from the deficient amount you currently consume on a daily basis, and allow it to become the more appropriate volume, your Kidneys will begin to accommodate to the new, more healthy volume of water. Likewise, with the newly added volume, your Kidneys will begin functioning in a more normal fashion and you might be surprised that all of your health concern symptoms seem to disappear. The reason for this is that most symptoms associated with health concerns have to do with the by-product of being dehydrated. During the Winter months, this is most evident, as most people have health problems when the weather gets cold. Staying properly hydrated and allowing the normal metabolic cycles to run smoothly, allows for the body to fix most of its functional problems, and the best part is, it does it all on its own.

The Importance of Proper Diet for Kidney Health

As eluded to earlier, through proper diet and nutrition, you can maintain a high level of function within your Kidneys, while maintaining their Vital Qi. The easiest way to do this is by eating lots of whole foods and natural foods while minimizing and eliminating all the artificially man-made ones that are high in artificial colors, sweeteners, and other preservatives. These of course are designed to increase the shelf-life of the food artificially while draining you of your Vital Qi. Unfortunately, these long-lasting shelf foods can decrease the length of your life dramatically. Something for you to consider, I'm sure.

Kidney Related Health Concerns

Some common conditions you can relate to Kidney weakness or stress are things like Low Back pain, Knee pain, and other symptoms like ringing in the ears. This is because the main sense organ associated with your Kidneys are the ears. Muscles associated with your Kidneys are the major hip flexors known as the Psoas and the Iliacus muscles, as well as the Upper Trapezius muscles of the neck. This sometimes helps a patient to understand the relationship between upper neck pain and low back/hip pain. The health of your Kidneys helps to regulate both of those areas.

Emotional Kidneys

The chief general emotion associated with your Kidneys is Fear, with the lesser ones being dread, bad memory, contemplation, or impending doom. The natural emotion of fear creates activity such as the fight/flight reaction. This crystallizes the activity of the Nervous System and the Brain, providing the tendency for you to stay alive. Some may equate this with a person's willpower. In fact, a person's will is regulated by the Water Element. As a result, people who have strong willpower are people with healthy Kidneys and Bladder.

Pathological emotions, on the other hand, when experienced regularly based on your view of your world create weakness and collapse of the Kidney energy. Therefore, fear and the other associated emotions involved will paralyze the activity within the body and weaken the body-mind system. 

Other possible effects include damage to the Nervous System and a resulting weakening of the Immune System. It's interesting that our news media are always reporting stories from a fear-based mentality. So is it any wonder why we have so many sick people?

Keep Your Kidneys Healthy

The steps you take to keep your kidneys healthy help the rest of your body too. Talk to your health care provider to find out the steps that are right for you.

If you are at risk for kidney disease, the most important steps you can take to keep your kidneys healthy are:

• Get your blood and urine checked for kidney disease.
• Manage your diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Tips to help keep your kidneys healthy:

When you see your provider, ask:

• What is my GFR?
• What is my urine albumin result?
• What is my blood pressure?
• What is my blood glucose (for people with diabetes)?

Find more questions to bring to your next medical visit.



Read about what to do if you have kidney disease.

Medicines Two Choices for You

There are several different ways to help support your Kidneys in maintaining normal function. 

The first and most basic way to support your Kidneys is to get under the care of a Holistic Chiropractor who can support you with a whole food supplement from Standard Process called Renafood. It gives your Kidney its basic building blocks which allow your Kidneys to maintain balanced function. 

If one has damaged Kidneys, then we would supplement with a whole food product by Standard Process called Renatrophin PMG. This allows your Kidneys to rebuild themselves by supplying specific ingredients designed to do just that. 

A third product to help rid your kidneys of all their accumulated toxins would be to use Arginex, also from Standard Process. 

Another way to support normal Kidney function is through herbals. I work with a company called Mediherb, which maintains the highest standards of any herbal supplement company out there. For improving and maintaining normal Kidney function, the following herbal remedies are tremendously helpful:

• Bilberry 6000,
• Boswelia Complex and
• DermaCo.

 

For liquid herbal support, the recommended tonic is Nettle Leaf. 

All of these products can be obtained through the office.

Working with your Holistic Chiropractor will be the best place to start to prevent Kidney Disease. Dr. Huntoon has 31 years of doing this after he had to address his own Kidney weakness discovered when he was 17 years old.

If you feel you may be having Kidney concerns, because you know you are dehydrated and your urine is too dark, or you may have low back pain or hip pain, or have trouble standing up from a sitting position, ask me to do the Kidney Health Check for you on your next scheduled office visit. It only takes a few minutes, and we can then discuss what can be done to improve the health of your Kidneys, which will translate to improving your overall health. 



Since it is my intention to help you become as healthy as possible, I encourage you to call me with any and all of your questions. My phone number is (845) 561-BACK (2225). To schedule an appointment, call the Office and let me know you want your Kidney Health Check on your next normal office visit.