Several years after I was diagnosed was when I started to feel the effects of PKD. The first issue I noticed was fatigue, and also over time, I noticed more and more back pain. In the afternoon I would notice getting a little drowsy and I would attribute feeling a little run down to just being busy with family, chasing around my kids, working full time, everything going on, but then I realized it just was the effects of the PKD were increasing over time. I started having a little more back pain and just kind of being sore.
I worked most of the time at a desk job, and I thought maybe this is just sort of typical, but I realized this is probably connected to the PKD also. My kidneys were growing, really getting bigger. The cysts were growing, and this probably was a real connection to the back pain. So, with my nephrologist I would talk about kind of the fatigue and some of these symptoms. I learned that fatigue can be part of your change in your white blood count and different things can change, and that can kind of lead to fatigue and some of these things.
