Bethenny Frankel Reveals Stage 2 Chronic Kidney Disease, Urges Fans to Get Bloodwork Done

Bethenny Frankel Reveals Stage 2 Chronic Kidney Disease, Urges Fans to Get Bloodwork Done

Bethenny Frankel said she has been diagnosed with stage 2 chronic kidney disease.

“I have a medical announcement. Not because I want you to worry, but because I want you to take precautions in your own life, be mindful,” the Real Housewives of New York alum, 55, began a Jan. 22 TikTok, where she revealed the ongoing health concern.

The SkinnyGirl founder said that she’d been “proactive about blood tests, bone density, all the things,” and repeated tests showed that “my kidney function was coming up low.” She was referred to a kidney specialist, but shared, “I didn’t want to go … I didn’t feel like going today.”

But, she shared, the meeting earlier that day was significant: “He said to me, ‘You have stage 2 chronic kidney disease,’ ” explaining that it could be autoimmune, or could have been caused by “this traumatic experience I had years ago when I almost died from an allergy attack. It could have done damage to the kidney.”

In stage 2 kidney disease, there’s a “mild loss of kidney function,” according to the Mayo Clinic. Lowering blood pressure — along with regular monitoring — can keep the disease from progressing.

@bethennyfrankel Medical cautionary tale #drinkwater #kidneydisease #health #bloodwork ♬ original sound – Bethenny Frankel

She said that her disease has likely caused infections — “I do get UTIs, not as much anymore” — and that the first line of treatment was to stay hydrated, something she admittedly struggles with.

“I don’t drink a lot of water … I’m holding a bottle, but I’m not usually drinking it.” When she told her doctor that she drinks kombucha, “He said, ‘Water is your medicine. You have to drink a giant —’ I think he said 1.5 [gallons] — ‘and you can put your hydration packets in it.’ ”

He also told her to cut out ibuprofen, Aleve or Advil, turmeric, and a few other things she couldn’t recall — including ice cream, which she was eating on camera. “I remembered after,” she said.

It’s the latest in a series of medical setbacks for Frankel, who was diagnosed with long COVID and the autoimmune disorder POTS in 2023. And in early January, she contracted a bacterial infection while on vacation in St. Barth’s.

Frankel said she wanted to come forward about her medical issues because “maybe this is something I’ll have to deal with forever, but I just wanted to tell you because I think it’s important to go get all your bloodwork done.”

“Be thorough,” she stressed, “then do the follow-ups for anything that seems like an outlier. And frankly, get your bloodwork done maybe six months and then six months later, because different stuff could come up and sometimes it’s an aberration and sometimes it means something.”

“In this case, it was a pattern,” she said, adding that she hopes to get answers from “part-time doctors” on TikTok. “I don’t know exactly what it means. Many of you will, which is also why I’m sharing with you.”

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