PART 3: THE DANGERS OF “DEPLETION” In my previous post concerning chronic severe hyponatremia, I explained how over corrections of serum sodium of large magnitude required a dilute large volume diuresis, often precipitated by resolution of a transient…
PART 2: THE PEE IS THE KEY I mentioned in the previous post that severe hyponatremia is multifactorial and that the contributing etiological factors in any given case may be transient and reversible. In this post I would…
INTRODUCTION: Severe chronic hyponatremia (<120 mEq/L) remains the #1 reason nephrologists lose sleep on call nights and rightly so. The fear of overcorrection and the risk of central pontine myelinolysis (CPM) or osmotic demyelination syndrome (ODS), however uncommon…
Although tangetial to nephrology in some ways, I believe a recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine has important lessons for anyone involved in clinical medicine and should make us think about the things that we do reflexively…
Improving preclinical nephrology education during medical school is a hot topic in nephrology these days. John Roberts, a nephrology fellow at Duke, recently produced a collection of short (10-15min) videos on renal physiology in an effort to do…
Nephrologists have been looking for sensitive biomarkers to predict AKI. Efforts have been made and the idea of “renal angina” was proposed by Goldstein and Chawla in 2010, but still there has been no reliable biomarker commercially available…
Two ASN-related activities to mention happening in the next couple of months. First, CJASN eJC will be hosting a twitter conversation about the recently published commentary “Training the Next Generation’s Nephrology Workforce. This will be hosted by Amar…
This is a short video describing the current and new policies regarding deceased donor kidney allocation in the USA. These policies may significantly affect certain groups of patients and physicians must be aware of those in order to…
A recent renal consult I encountered was a Cantonese gentleman with a classical symptomatic history for Hypokalemic Periodic Paralysis (HPP). He presented with a serum K of 1.4 mmol/l and profound weakness. Initially beginning in his teenage years,…
Antiphospholipid syndrome (APS) is an autoimmune hypercoagulable disorder characterized by small-to-large vascular (both arterial and venous) thrombosis with end-organ damages, in presence of circulating antibodies against phospholipid binding proteins. Kidney transplantation in patients with APS is challenging because…