Kidneys & High blood pressure

Good question, and I am not a doctor and don’t profess to know from a medical standpoint. But, my sister has kidney disease (IgA nephropathy) and she practiced Bikram yoga until her kidneys declined to the point that she had to go on dialysis. Her doctor was very concerned about the impact of the heat and the sweating on her kidneys, but my sister found that from doing the practice, she did not have to restrict her potassium or sodium nearly as much (she sweat it all out) and felt pretty good overall. At her studio, students are discouraged from drinking water during class, but given my sister’s condition, the instructor was supportive of her need to drink water, and even made comments during class to make sure she was drinking enough.

At one point, as her kidney functioning continued to decline, the doctors insisted she stop the yoga. She did, taking a break of almost a month until her next blood work. The next test showed the same trend, certainly no improvement, so it seemed that stopping the yoga did not help, and doing the yoga did not hurt, so she went back to class. Once she had to start home dialysis, she obviously had to stop, although now she feels so good she talks about going back to yoga.

She also struggled with the blood pressure issue, but from my perspective, when she was going to yoga AND hydrating properly (throughout the day, not just in class), her BP was under better control. Her doctor was understandably concerned, because he had seen people come into his office in renal failure because of extreme hydration, and he didn’t want the yoga to further damage my sister’s kidneys. By the end of her yoga practice, her doctor seemed to have reconsidered his opinion on the yoga…he wasn’t as against it as before, and even joked that he should give it a try.

I hope this information helps you. My biggest recommendation is to track your condition closely, hydrate well, and listen to your body.

-kristin

Hello Rob

May I please ask you the motivation to stop taking salt? The reason I ask is this: There have been longstanding beliefs about salt and the effects on BP. Your body is a physiological battery that needs electrolytes. You sweat them out in hot yoga so you need to replenish them. I believe you could be putting you and your kidneys and your blood pressure in a worse position if you avoid salt especially sea salt with a good complement of minerals and electrolytes.

There has been a large amount of refuting of the propagated belief that salt is bad for the body. In fact there is a large turnaround.

There is a belief that the studies that found that salt is bad could have been examining the results of using electrolyte-poor table salt (only sodium and chloride and a touch of iodine).

I would be very concerned if a lot of hot yoga is being performed and hydration was up but electrolytes were down. That with all the fluid and electrolyte loss and you could be causing a BIGGER problem. Please take a look at what HYPONATREMIA causes (and its causes too through an online search).

Would you please tell me too why the specialist thinks that the heat could be damaging? I don’t know enough about polycystic kidneys. But what I do know is that most medicos will warn you against hot yoga UNLESS they practise it themselves. It can be a fear-through-ignorance standpoint, erring on ‘safety’ because they simply don’t know. That is not a criticism of them. It is just human nature (and possibly a medico-legal issue).

You LOVE your practice. And hot yoga (if you are well hydrated and have good electrolyte replenishment through sea salt or other supplements) is FANTASTIC for correcting blood pressure conditions.

So Rob, how does that all resonate with you?

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hi Rob

That’s good news. Keep us posted.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂

Hello Alex

Before I go commenting on things, I would like to ask you if you would kindly tell me if you notice that light-headed feeling during or after particular poses or if it’s a feeling that you get just by being in the room? It would help me enormously to know if you feel dizzy for the 100+ minutes you’re in the room or if it is episodic. As much specificity as you can, please.

Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂