In honor of national kidney month, we can all agree that healthy kidney functions such as blood filtration, waste and drug removal, and regulation of our bodies’ fluids and minerals are essential for nerves, muscles, and tissues’ health. That’s not all, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, kidneys also produce hormones that help control blood pressure, produce red blood cells, and improve bone health. However, patients with kidney disease experience problems with these functions due to kidney injury, malfunction, or failure, making it difficult for kidney patients to maintain good health.

According to National Kidney Foundation, there is some food that kidney disease patients can include in their diet to help maintain or restore kidney health. For example, patients can include cabbage, cauliflower, egg whites, and fish in their daily meals diet. Respectively, these food selections have phytochemicals, vitamin c, fiber, protein, and Omega-3 acids. For snacks, patients can eat blueberries, strawberries, and red grapes which are low in potassium, and rich in antioxidants, vitamin c, and fiber. Bottom line, all these are healthy for the kidneys and can help maintain and improve kidney functions!

Other tips to help kidney patients maintain good health are maintenance of blood pressure below 140/90, regulation of cholesterol levels, and exercise.

What We Can Do

Look, maintaining good health for kidney patients does not only involve a healthy diet, but patients also most importantly have to access healthcare. However, it can be difficult to find efficient and affordable transportation services for medical appointments for kidney patients with special transportation needs, such as those who need dialysis.

Medstar provides patient transportation services for medical appointments and partnership transportation helpful for kidney patients and other patients who need transportation with medical services and private transportation for traveling with ease.

For transportation with medical services, Medstar offers healthcare worker shuttles, Medicaid transportation rides, and medical couriers. For private transportation, Medstar offers home-from-hospital rides, rides for dialysis travel, wheelchair-accessible and stretcher rides, and bariatric rides. For more information, contact us now at +1 (509) 728-9816.