Ronen Recovering from Kidney Failure

Everyday it's been a daily struggle trying to prevent a dangerous complication due to Ronen's current condition.

Ronen is suffering from Kidney damage called Glomerulonephritis.  It's a form of Kidney Nephritis where the filtering mechanisms are not able to properly perform common functions such as Potassium / Sodium load balancing, removal of excess water in the blood and removal of waste products normally.  The constant imbalance of Potassium / Sodium puts him at an hourly risk of fluid retention build up in the brain (Cerebral Edema) and blood pressure spikes (via Kidney disfunction) that could induce a heart attack or stroke.

It wasn't always like this however.  Ronen never experienced any medical problems until a routine trip to the doctor's office 12 years ago, when doctors diagnosed him with severe hypertension that no blood work or examination could determine a root cause.  At that time, Doctors downplayed any potential risk for complications due to his fit status and young age, so they prescribed him Blood Pressure meds and sent him on his way. 

As the years passed, the situation got worse.  Unresponsive to any blood pressure medications, doctors continued to downplay the issue (since no routine testing showed a particular cause) and kept changing the combination of this blood pressure medications.  Still no medication proved to work.  Ronen had to go through experiences that no young man in his 20's should ever have to go through.  Countless trips to the Emergency Room for near Stroke / Heart Attack level blood pressure readings, and the best Doctors could do (at the time) was emergency blood pressure medication, and asked him to follow up with his doctor.  

As the blood pressure remained uncontrolled approaching 30 years old (with as many as 3 different BP medications), Ronen began suspecting Doctors may have missed something all throughout these years.   Especially since additional anomalies began to develop that Ronen never experienced as a child.  Severe bouts of hyper reactive Histamine levels caused his nasal passages to swell shut, causing major Sleep Apnea issues every night, and further complicating Blood Pressure issues and Heart Function.  The lack of sleep at night further debilitated his daily life, to which allergy shots, a CPAP breathing machine, and even nasal surgery were unable to offset the unexplained overactive immune responses.  

Ronen finally went with his gut feeling that all of these anomalies since his 20's may have all been related.  His gut feeling proved right after many years of Alternative Medicine research when he came across metabolic disorders and Vitamin D deficiency.  A simple Vitamin D serum test which no doctor thought about doing in over 10 years, proved the gut feeling correct.  Ronen was suffering from an underlying (and severe) Vitamin D deficiency, alongside another metabolic disorder.  Vitamin D is actually not a vitamin at all, but rather a Hormone.  Responsible for regulation of other various hormones which regulate Blood Pressure, prevent Calcium from leaching out of bone and building up in Artery tissue, as well as maintaining proper Histamine regulation and immune response.  All these years a simple Vitamin D test would have led doctors down the right path of identifying Ronen's underlying symptoms, however, no primary care physician (or specialist) in over 10 years bothered to investigate his condition deeply enough to suspect something as basic as a metabolic deficiency.  

While this was an initial victory, there were also storms ahead.  Doctors instructed Ronen to begin high level Vitamin D therapy to bring his levels back to normal status, but did not take into account a potential drug interaction with his existing Blood Pressure meds.  The maker of a blood pressure drug called Benicar, has not yet fully disclosed an interaction with Vitamin D therapy and their product, and Ronen was victim to the lack of knowledge by doctors that indeed there is an undisclosed interaction with Vitamin D therapy and Benicar.  Upon starting the Vitamin D therapy while still on Benicar, Ronen experienced a life threatening interaction which soared his blood pressure readings into near fatal levels (200/130).  While doctors in the ER were aggressively treating the hypertensive state to prevent a heart attack or stroke, the underlying interaction between Benicar and the Vitamin D therapy caused a toxic condition to his Kidneys.

The connection between Benicar and Vitamin D therapy only became suspicious to doctors after the evidence of Kidney damage became clear in one of Ronen's recent ER visits.

In the last 3 months, Ronen has had to rush to the emergency room over 13 times due to dangerous blood pressure spikes and near renal failure every time.  What became a light at the end of the tunnel with the Vitamin D discovery, became a nightmare as doctors were not aware of the toxic interaction between his existing medication and Vitamin D therapy.  Ronen has not been able to function normally throughout this time, unable to work, and without health insurance, has developed astronomical hospital bills.  The worse part about it, is now that the Kidney Damage has set in, Ronen has run out of finances to see the correct doctor (a Nephrologist) to keep up with the prognosis of his Kidney Damage.

It's a daily struggle to keep the kidneys from spiking the blood pressure, and avoiding the severe complication of too much fluid building up in the brain, as the kidneys sluggishly try to remove excess fluid from the blood.  All of this while trying to allocate funds to help pay for daily life expenses (food, utilities and rent).  Facing near eviction, Ronen is struggling to allocate funds for previous Hospital costs, additional costs to visit the proper Nephrologist to manage and prevent additional damage to kidney function, the $200+ per month in prescription meds, and keeping him from losing his apartment while the healing process continues.

We need everyone's help in this dark hour, and we have faith this situation will see itself through.  Ronen is the type of person who would give you the shirt off his back.  He's always been there for us, and always jumping at the chance to help even total strangers when he's seen he's able to.  We've witnessed it first hand many times in many situations in the past.    Please help us seeing his recovery through, as he is VERY vigilant in giving this struggle a purpose once her recovers.  His plans are to get into a Natural Medicine curriculum, where he can help teach others about underlying natural causes to disease states and how to help correct them without the constant reliance of synthetic pharmaceuticals.  Ronen intends to also hold the makers of Benicar accountable, and spread the message everywhere to prevent anyone else from life threatening complications with this medication.  

Let's get him BACK ON HIS FEET!  We thank you SO MUCH for all your support!