Stage 4 Kidney Failure Patient Doubles GFR and Avoids Dialysis

Ella Webber (00:00) My GFR is what I looked at was down to 15 and now it's up to like 29. So it's almost doubled. And that is a major reason why my energy level is higher. I think that my mind works better, My thought processes are clearer. My creatinine was up like 3 9 and it's down to 2 3 5 I think. So. That's a huge change. Slowly every time I get a blood test, I get better. My name is William A. Whitman. I go by Al Whitman. I am a commercial real estate broker. I live in the state of Indiana in the city Hanover. My struggles were, I was in stage 4 kidney failure and it was getting worse. My numbers were going down or up, as it may be. and was faced with dialysis as an option. Basically, the physicians group were preparing me for dialysis, sending me to classes for me and my wife, and didn't see any hope for the future for me to stay off of dialysis. The biggest effect on my daily life was fatigue, constant fatigue. My kidneys weren't functioning well and I was tired all the time, which they told me was a result of kidney failure. You know, I was upset about it and obviously I don't want to go on dialysis. I still don't want to go on dialysis, and I was searching for other options. I wanted to make sure that if I went on dialysis that I had done everything possible to avoid it. I'm a positive person. I'm not a depressed person or negative. I would say I had a bad attitude about going on dialysis. It kind of pissed me off just thinking about it. I tend to get angry and think things like, I'm going to beat this. And that's what kept me going, kept me searching. My daughter is an ER, emergency room physician. she works for a Cleveland Clinic. And she knows Dr. Irfan. She said to me, "You need to call this lady." As a result of that, my wife and I contacted Dr. Irfan. She was very direct, and she asked a lot of questions, and she seemed right out of the box to say, "I'm gonna try and help you if I can. Let's look at what your options are. There are things that we can try and I believe that there's a good chance we can improve your... your GFR and your creatinine and, you know, change these different levels of uric acid, etc." I went through all that stuff and gave me some choices. What I experienced beforehand was, well, these are your numbers and you're in decline And this probably isn't going to get any better. It's going to get worse. Your age is against you. I have one kidney. And they go through all of what's wrong with you and say, we can't create more kidney cells. And basically were taking me down the road to dialysis. I think at that point sharon - who was my wife - and I sat down and said, "look, I got to try this. This doctor has given me an alternative." I'm results-oriented. I look at the numbers and the first time that I thought, this is working is when I had my first blood test and the numbers. changed for the better and they were more positive and they were slight changes, but they were changes. and as we've progressed, they improved even more. I do have a lot more energy. I'm 78 years old. I own my own business. I'm still working. I like to do my own thing and that was a concern of mine that here I am falling asleep during the day and I'm too tired to go out and all this stuff I want to do and I have no energy. Well, I'm kind of back to being me. and I'm busy and I'm doing the things that I want to do. I just had never experienced online care. I don't think that other than somebody physically putting their hands on you that there's any difference than sitting in a doctor's office and having the nurse practitioner come in and talk to you because the doctor's busy. When I call, Dr. Irfan sees me every time. I can go get all my blood tests. I can go get a scan. I can go get an x-ray. I can get anything I need here. She can order it. Any prescription care I need, any medicine I need, any supplements I need, she can get to me overnight. If I call my family physician, I can't get in there because they're booked. These online visits are scheduled. They're done. And I do have access to her on the telephone. If I need to see her in between, she has an assistant whose name is John. And if I call contact him or I have my wife, she'll call John or I'll call John and we get answers back right away. it's been a good experience. I, you know, I've had positive results and I've had good service. I would tell them that they have nothing to lose. and everything to gain. For me, it's all been a positive gain. And I know there's different types of kidney failure, kidney disease, but all I know is I've been able to improve my kidney function through what I call functional medicine. I was skeptical and, you know, maybe I should have jumped into this quicker, sooner. I was argumentative and I was, "are you sure this is gonna work? how in the heck is somebody in Texas gonna take care of me?" I was skeptical. I would say to anybody, you can try this and you can opt out. If it doesn't work for you, you can go somewhere else. If I don't think Dr. Irfan is providing me the service that I need, I have the option of going somewhere else. And I have chosen to stay here for a reason.