Nutrition for pyelonephritis

The text is for informational purposes only. We urge you not to use diets, do not resort to any medical menus and fasting without medical supervision. Recommended reading: “Why you can not go on a diet on your own.” Nutrition for pyelonephritis is a specific diet that helps eliminate the inflammatory process in the kidneys, normalizes metabolic processes in the body and acts as a source of strengthening the patient’s immunity.

A bacterial lesion of the renal pelvis is a disease called pyelonephritis. The disease is widespread, has acute and chronic forms and several stages of the course. Among its main symptoms are high body temperature, nausea and vomiting, pain in the lumbar region, impaired urination. Such a pathology is treated in an acute form only in a hospital setting. To improve the impact of drug therapy and increase its effectiveness, an appropriate diet is prescribed in parallel to the patient.

Nutrition in acute forms of pyelonephritis should be gentle for the kidneys. At the acute stage, protein and salt restriction is recommended. In this case, the drinking regime is set to be more active, since if an inflammatory process occurs, the kidneys should be washed to reduce the concentration of waste products of pathogenic microorganisms.

Diet rules

Diet in cases of pyelonephritis in adults plays a major role in treatment. Any non-compliance with the diet can lead to a worsening of the course of the disease and an increase in the duration of drug therapy. Proper nutrition for pyelonephritis is usually selected in order to normalize the metabolic processes in the patient’s body, rather remove toxic substances, nitrogenous compounds and salts. If the correct diet is prescribed and the patient follows it, a clinical effect is soon noted.

The basic principles of dietary nutrition according to Pevzner, which is used in cases of therapeutic treatment of pyelonephritis, include the therapeutic “Table No. 7”. Its essence is to reduce daily salt intake to a minimum amount, reduce protein foods, and increase the proportion of vitamins consumed.

However, it is important to remember that the specialist must prescribe the diet in detail. For example, a complete rejection of salt can lead to salt-losing kidney syndrome or kidney failure, so the doctor draws up a menu where the maximum daily salt intake for the patient does not exceed 10 grams. However, with profuse incessant vomiting, high fever and heavy sweating, doctors increase the salt rate for the patient to 15 grams.

The diet for kidney pathologies for adults involves fortification of food. For patients with pyelonephritis, the amount of daily intake of vitamins A, group B and C should be increased by one and a half times. The diet menu should include easily digestible foods that have undergone gentle heat treatment during cooking. With this diet, preference should be given to steam cooking with the addition of salt at the end of the cooking process. In addition to steam food, you can eat boiled food, fried food is not recommended. Fat is also not desirable in kidney disease. It is worth eating boiled food from 5 times a day, however, if a high body temperature occurs, it is important to postpone the main meal at a time when the body’s thermoregulation is improving. That is, it is desirable to eat more at normal temperatures, and drink more at elevated temperatures.

The main goals of the diet for pyelonephritis are the following processes:

• creation of optimal conditions for the normalization of kidney function;
• resumption of the optimal metabolic process in all organs and systems of the body;
• lowering blood pressure;
• getting rid of fluid stagnation in the body and swelling;
• creation of conditions for the complete removal of salts, toxins and nitrogenous compounds.

In cases of pyelonephritis in children, the diet for them does not fundamentally differ from that described above. The peculiarities of the child’s nutrition can be his personal preference for certain products. For example, if you do not want to drink a lot of water, it is important to offer your child to drink fruit drinks, juice, tea. The fluid should enter the diseased body often, in small quantities. It is advisable, in the case of a child’s diet, to provide his diet with 50% fermented milk products, eliminate cocoa and chocolate, salty foods (nuts, chips, crackers) and soda from the menu.

In the case of the occurrence of this disease in infants, it is important to take into account certain features when compiling their diet. The acute form of the disease must necessarily be accompanied by a water-tea diet, and breastfeeding must be clearly dosed. If the infant is bottle-fed, then in cases of pyelonephritis it should be fed with fermented milk products. At the same time, it is necessary to strictly control the content of salt and protein in products for feeding babies. To feed babies, it is necessary to choose products in which extractives will be completely absent.

Recommended food

A rigid diet for pyelonephritis, even in the acute stage, is required by the patient only in the first days of the disease. In the future, it is necessary to eat, observing the basic principles of a healthy diet, but not neglecting the variety of products. Experts recommend including lean meats, poultry and fish in the daily menu, which can become a source of animal protein, which should be gradually reintroduced into the diet after severe restrictions. Also, vegetable, dairy, cereal soups, cereals are suitable for a daily diet (buckwheat and oatmeal are the best option). The consumption of large amounts of vegetables and fruits, as well as dairy products, is excellent for the kidneys. Dairy and fruit and vegetable foods help shift the indicators of the acid-base balance in the urine to the alkaline side, while the pathogenic microflora will die even without drugs, since it is the acidic environment that is the basis for its life activity. An alkaline environment in the kidneys will help speed up the healing process.

The main dietary menu for pyelonephritis is calculated for a week. For the first 2-3 days, it is important to consume a lot of herbal decoctions and teas, completely excluding the consumption of sugar. During exacerbations, you can eat unsalted vegetable soups, and later add dairy products to them. Among the most desirable vegetables for pyelonephritis, experts call carrots, zucchini with their high diuretic properties, pumpkin, and potatoes. It is recommended to add watermelons and melons to fruits, which actively cleanse and wash the kidneys. Among the allowed flour products, one can single out pancakes and pancakes, as well as crackers from fresh bread.

When following a diet during an exacerbation of pyelonephritis, it is important to drink such drinks as mineral alkaline water, rosehip broth, dried fruit compote, weak lemon tea, diluted cranberry juice. Cranberry acid helps to suppress the reproduction of pathogenic microbes in the kidneys. Categorically, with pyelonephritis, you can not drink coffee and alcohol.

Prohibited products

As with any other diet, with proper nutrition for pyelonephritis, there are a number of foods that should be completely excluded from the menu. Such products include, first of all, all salty food – smoked and salted fish, conservation, where salt occupies a significant share of the recipe, various cheeses. It is not recommended to eat too fatty foods – meat, fatty fish, fatty sour cream. Meat dishes are rich in protein, which is contraindicated in the body during the inflammatory process of the kidneys.

Acute and spicy with pyelonephritis should also be excluded. Such food provokes an exacerbation of the disease or even leads to the occurrence of glomerulonephritis. Spicy and sour vegetables help create an acidic environment in the digestive tract, which is very beneficial for the migration process and the spread of microbes. An acidic environment is their habitat, so such food should be categorically excluded from the diet. Also, some acidic vegetables can additionally irritate the urinary tract, which should be avoided. These vegetables include radishes, sorrel, onions, spinach, and capsicum.

Strong tea, coffee, sweets and chocolate should not be consumed during the treatment of pyelonephritis. These products are able to intensify and provoke inflammatory processes, therefore, even after the elimination of the acute stage of the disease, their use is undesirable.

Sample menu for pyelonephritis

In order to maintain a diet during treatment, it is important to eat varied, and not just healthy. So that the menu for pyelonephritis does not get bored and there is no temptation to eat something forbidden by doctors, it is recommended to supplement the daily diet with all types of non-prohibited foods.

An example menu might look like this:

• breakfast consists of a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and vegetable oil, boiled buckwheat, bread with butter, weak tea with sugar and milk (in small quantities);
• for a second breakfast, it is recommended to eat cottage cheese pudding and drink it with fruit juice;
• for lunch, a vegetarian borscht based on cabbage, potatoes, beets and carrots, baked fish with mashed potatoes and dried fruit compote is preferred;
• semolina porridge, a portion of stewed carrots with dried fruits and weak tea are acceptable for dinner;
• Before going to bed, doctors recommend drinking a glass of kefir.

Also, for breakfast with a diet, you can also eat carrot-apple salad seasoned with vegetable oil, semolina and drink tea with sugar. A snack with pyelonephritis may consist of a glass of juice. For lunch, you can cook vegetable soup, lean meat and rice porridge as a side dish. It is recommended to drink lunch with cranberry-based jelly. For dinner, you can have a cottage cheese casserole, a baked apple and herbal tea.

Before going to bed, nothing is better than kefir.

Diet “Table number 7”

In the event of pyelonephritis, experts recommend that the patient adhere to the therapeutic diet “Table No. 7”. This is a salt-free diet, in which protein can be consumed in physiologically necessary quantities for a person. This nutrition system provides for limiting salt intake to 2 grams per day and increasing the amount of vitamins B, C and R consumed. The energy value for patients with pyelonephritis is considered to be a norm of 2700 kilocalories per day, while it is necessary to consume 70 grams of protein, 90 grams of fat and 400 grams of carbohydrates.

“Table No. 7” is prescribed in cases of a recovery period for acute nephritis from the third week, for chronic pyelonephritis, hypertension, pyelonephritis of pregnant women and other similar conditions. Thus, it can be understood that this diet is indicated for patients with a non-acute stage of pyelonephritis. It must be adhered to in everyday life for those who suffer from a chronic disease outside of periods of exacerbations. There are a lot of products recommended in this menu, among them there are those that cannot be consumed in acute forms of the disease. This fact is explained by the fact that “Table No. 7” involves bringing the patient’s diet to a certain algorithm, which will be easy to adhere to. The gradual introduction of certain forbidden foods will help the body adapt to the diet and not experience discomfort from restrictions.

An approximate weekly diet menu “Table No. 7” for a week is as follows:

• Monday – cottage cheese, toast, tea and jam, vegetable soup, fat-free kefir, mashed potatoes, tomato and cucumber salad, compote;
• Tuesday – steamed omelet with herbs, orange juice, buckwheat-based soup, low-fat meat cutlets, weak black tea, any fruit salad and green tea;
• Wednesday – milk with a piece of chocolate, low-fat fish cutlets, mashed potatoes, berry jelly, vegetable salad, cottage cheese, tea with lemon;
• Thursday – cottage cheese, sour cream, unsweetened green tea, vegetable stew, tomato juice, vegetable salad, mashed potatoes, fat-free kefir;
• Friday – honey toasts and weak creamy coffee, buckwheat, vegetable stew, low-fat kefir, banana, kiwi, orange juice;
• Saturday – yogurt with fruit, berry jelly, low-fat meat cutlets, mashed potatoes, orange juice, toast with jam, apple juice;
• Sunday – cottage cheese with sour cream, unsweetened tea, toast, salad from any kind of fruit, low-fat kefir, vegetable salad, tomato juice.

Recipes for illness

When compiling a menu for patients with pyelonephritis, it is important that the food is not only healthy, but also tasty. The patient should not get bored with the same thing, the variety and form of preparation of even simple cereals and soups should be at the highest level.

A tasty delicacy for a diet may turn out to be “Guryev porridge” for a patient. For her, you need to take half a cup of semolina, 2 cups of milk, half a cup of chopped walnuts, 2 tablespoons of sugar and butter, 1 egg, vanillin and salt to taste (limited).

Boil the milk and pour salt and semolina into it in a thin stream. Brew a viscous porridge, stirring it constantly so that no lumps appear. After cooking, the porridge needs to be cooled, add mashed egg yolk with sugar and whipped egg white to a foamy state, as well as chopped nuts fried in butter. Next, milk and cream are mixed in a wide shallow saucepan and it is placed in a hot oven. At the same time, milk foams will periodically form, which must be carefully removed and temporarily set aside. In parallel with this, you need to make a sauce of 10 apricots, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 3 tablespoons of water. Apricots are crushed, mixed with sugar, filled with water and boiled until the fruit is boiled.

In a thick-walled large frying pan greased with oil, first porridge is laid out in layers, then apricots, and all this is covered with foam on top. The layers must be repeated, laying a layer of porridge on top of the entire mass. The pan is placed in a preheated oven and the dish is baked until golden brown.

For lunch, while following a diet, it is important to eat healthy, high-calorie and tasty first courses. You can make soup with beef meatballs, which will require 200 grams of beef, a slice of wheat bread, an onion, 1 carrot, a tablespoon of butter, 200 grams of potatoes or 50 grams of pasta.

The beef is passed through a meat grinder, a piece of bread soaked in milk is added to the minced meat, salted and again passed through a meat grinder. Onions and ground pepper are added to the prepared minced meat. Meatballs the size of a small walnut are prepared from minced meat, which are then placed in 2 liters of salted water along with chopped carrots, onions and herbs fried in vegetable oil. Boiling soup is seasoned with potatoes or pasta and boiled until cooked for about 15-20 minutes.

Nutrition in pyelonephritis plays no less important role than drug therapy. Only the competent use of certain products will help the body cope with the infection and strengthen the immune forces to prevent its recurrence.

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