Question
Foamy urine and dry palms
29 May 2008. Related: All topics, Living with HIV long-term, Opportunistic infections, Side effects.
I am on Kaletra and Kivexa and have been for 2 months. The drugs are working – my CD4 has gone up to 600 from 300 and my viral load is undetectable. However, in the past month I have had a strage thing happening ot my hands – the palms have completely dried out and becoming wrinkled. I cannot link this to an environmental factor so think it could be the drugs. Also I am weeing a lot more than usual and is foamy, so I thought it could be related to kidney function. I have just discussed this with my doctor but he does not seem to think it is and has referred me to a dermatologist.
What do you think? Could it be related to kidneys?
Answer
Foamy urine may or may not be related to kidney function – sometimes increase levels of protein in the urine (proteinuria) can cause foam, but not always.
If this persists then it is easy to ask your doctor to test a sample, especially if it is worrying you, though the HIV drugs you are using are not linked to kidney related problems, this would check that you don’t have other underlying kidney disease.
With skin problems that are not easily explained by treatment – again your HIV drugs are generally linked to this – then referral to a specialist dermatologist seems like the best idea.
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