i have come to the conclusion that although there may have been some nephrotoxic elements, caused by sucralose, acesulfame-k and dehydration from caffeine and alcohol, it's probable that i also have had a developing bunch of kidney stones

i am now keeping a lemon juice thing and using it in almost every drink i make (water or other) and it's definitely causing the pain i was getting intermittently in my kidney areas on left and right basically go away

the vision problem is reducing too, which i can assume means that it was also related to low kidney function, not fully resolved yet but probably i still have stones and kidney damage to resolve

avoiding further damage means a few things - avoiding artificial sweetners and avoiding maltodextrin

the maltodextrin is fairly easy to motivate avoidance of, it causes pain in my bottom-right half broken rear molar, and basically all kinds of potato chips now have it in them, even when they don't even have a flavor