Thread: low albumin levels

Hi. My son is 7yrs. old. He has had 2 transplants. He has had 2 livers,2 sm bowel, stomach and a pancreas. Lately(since March of 09) we have been dealing with low albumin levels. So I give him albumin runs at home. We started out every day,then every Mon., Wed., Friday. Still was too high level. Now we are at Mon. and Thurs. And its dropping like a rock again. What can I do to maintain an even level? Is there some type of food that I can give him? Hes allergic to peanuts,shellfish,milk. And has alot of food intolerences. Please offer me some advice..I would like to get him off of the albumin runs completely. Thank you for your time....Denise-of-four

Originally Posted by denise-of-four

Hi. My son is 7yrs. old. He has had 2 transplants. He has had 2 livers,2 sm bowel, stomach and a pancreas. Lately(since March of 09) we have been dealing with low albumin levels. So I give him albumin runs at home. We started out every day,then every Mon., Wed., Friday. Still was too high level. Now we are at Mon. and Thurs. And its dropping like a rock again. What can I do to maintain an even level? Is there some type of food that I can give him? Hes allergic to peanuts,shellfish,milk. And has alot of food intolerences. Please offer me some advice..I would like to get him off of the albumin runs completely. Thank you for your time....Denise-of-four

Sounds fixable, but we need a little more info. Three possibilities:

1. Albumin is spilling into the urine (nephrotic syndrome)
2. It's spilling into his gut (protein-losing enteropathy). That would kind of fit with the allergies.
3. He's just not making enough. Pretty rare. Liver would have to be in bad shape.

So does he have protein in the urine? Chronic diarrhea? Is the liver still working well?

Hello again. My son had his urine tested for albumin in it and If I remember correctly there was a trace of it in there. His liver is working great. Ast was 17 , alt 21 and gg 48. Very happy with those numbers. Its just this albumin that has everyone stumped.
Again thank you for your time and thoughts in helping my son.
denise-of-four

Originally Posted by denise-of-four

Hello again. My son had his urine tested for albumin in it and If I remember correctly there was a trace of it in there. His liver is working great. Ast was 17 , alt 21 and gg 48. Very happy with those numbers. Its just this albumin that has everyone stumped.
Again thank you for your time and thoughts in helping my son.
denise-of-four

So, he has PLE. In the last 25 years, I have seen only one case. Not surprising, then , that everyone was stumped.

How do we fix it? Certainly, he should continue to avoid cow's milk. Gluten is also likely to cause trouble. That can be tough to exclude from a seven year-old, no question.

Green smoothies and coconut kefir come to mind as good starters.