Chronic Kidney Affliction

What You Need to Know

You have 2 kidneys, located nigh the centre of your back, merely below the rib cage. Each is about the size of your fist. Tiny structures called nephrons are within each kidney and they filter the blood. There are about a one thousand thousand of them.

The kidneys are responsible for removing wastes, toxins and extra water from the body; balancing of import salts and minerals in the blood; and releasing hormones to assistance control blood pressure, manage anemia and help maintain strong bones. The waste product and actress water removed by the kidneys get urine. The urine flows through tubes called ureters. It goes to your bladder, which stores the urine until you go to the bath.

When the kidneys are damaged, they can't filter claret as they should. The result tin can be a build-up of wastes in your torso, as well as other problems that can harm your health.

One in three American adults is at high risk for developing kidney disease today. Yet most aren't able to identify the signs and symptoms. One in 9 American adults has kidney disease and nigh don't know information technology.

At showtime, kidney disease is silent. Symptoms ofttimes don't appear until the kidneys are badly damaged. Many people don't take whatever symptoms until their kidney disease is advanced. Blood and urine tests are the only mode to know if you lot take kidney disease.

What is chronic kidney illness?

Chronic kidney disease, sometimes called CKD, is an umbrella term for several conditions that affect the kidneys, but information technology generally means permanent — and usually progressive — damage to the kidneys acquired by a variety of conditions.

Larn Your ABCs of Kidney Disease

Johns Hopkins nephrologists Drs. Sumeska Thavarajah and Daphne Knicely offer a free educational course virtually months, from 5 – six p.m. at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center. For more than information, call 410-550-2820.

Causes

The leading cause of kidney failure is diabetes. High claret pressure is the second leading crusade of kidney failure. Both diabetes and loftier blood pressure level damage your kidneys overtime.

Heart disease and kidney affliction are connected. If you lot accept one, you are at risk for the other.

Age is also a risk factor for kidney disease, specifically, existence over lx.

The main causes of chronic kidney illness in children are anatomical/structural abnormalities or inherited conditions, such every bit polycystic kidney disease. Weather that cause harm to the kidneys' filters, the glomeruli, can lead to chronic kidney affliction.

Learn How to Lower Your Risk for Kidney Illness

Did you know that your kidneys play an important role in keeping your body performance properly? Nephrologist Daphne Knicely offers the superlative 5 jobs healthy kidneys perform.

Symptoms

  • Changes in urination
    Your urine may exist foamy or bubbly; you may urinate more than or less often; amounts may be greater or less than usual; the color may exist darker or paler than usual; you may encounter claret in the urine; you lot may have difficulty urinating
  • Swelling
    When your kidneys don't work, excess fluid isn't removed from your body. It can build up and cause swelling in the legs, ankles, anxiety, face, and/or hands.
  • Fatigue
    The kidneys make a hormone called erythropoietin, or EPO, which tells your trunk to make oxygen-carrying carmine blood cells. If your kidneys are damaged, they make less EPO, which means fewer cherry claret cells are bachelor to conduct oxygen. This is called anemia, and itwhich can be treated.
  • Skin Rash/Itching
    When the kidneys can't remove wastes from the body, information technology builds upwards in your blood and can cause severe itching.
  • Metallic Gustatory modality in Mouth/Ammonia Breath
    When waste builds up in the blood information technology is chosen uremia. This tin can make food sense of taste different and cause bad breath. It is non uncommon to end liking to eat meat, or to lose weight because you don't feel similar eating.
  • Nausea and Airsickness
    Uremia tin can also cause nausea and airsickness.
  • Shortness of Jiff
    Extra fluid in the torso tin can build up in the lungs. This build up, combined with anemia, tin upshot in shortness of breath.
  • Feeling Cold
    Anemia tin brand the body feel cold even when in a warm room.
  • Dizziness and Trouble Concentrating
    Anemia that is the upshot of kidney failure means that your brain is non getting enough oxygen, which can lead to memory problems, trouble with concentration, and dizziness.

Diagnosis

Two tests are normally suggested to screen for CKD.

  • Glomerular filtration rate (GFR): a common blood tests to run across how well your kidneys are filtering.
  • Urine albumin: checks for a protein that passes into urine when the kidneys are damaged.

In addition, serum creatinine is a blood examination that is used to estimate how well the kidneys are filtering waste matter out of the blood.

Handling

Treatment may include medicines to lower blood force per unit area, control blood glucose, and lower blood cholesterol. CKD tin get worse over fourth dimension. CKD may atomic number 82 to kidney failure. The only treatment options for kidney failure are dialysis or a kidney transplantation.

A Startling Diagnosis

During her sophomore year of college, Kaitlyn began feeling fatigued and experiencing dizzy spells. Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease, she underwent a lifesaving transplant procedure.