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We know kidney diseases from the advice to put a T-shirt in your pants, because if you catch a kidney cold, you will often visit the bathroom. Meanwhile, a problem with the kidneys, and much more serious than a cold, affects 1 in 10 people! Therefore, each of us should know someone who is treated by a nephrologist.
Kidney disease – diagnosis
Kidney disease is very ungrateful and usually only shows symptoms when it is too late for a quick and effective treatment. What advice? It is important to realize that the absence of urinary problems does not mean that there is no problem. You should also have your urine tested regularly – it’s cheap, simple, and non-invasive. Albumin are proteins that, in a healthy person, are found only in the blood. Their presence in the urine indicates that something is wrong.
– Unfortunately, the first and second of the five stages of chronic kidney disease do not give virtually any symptoms – says Dr. Krzysztof Bednarski, MD, a nephrology specialist in internal diseases and a member of the Polish Nephrology Society. – That is why early detection is most important. If you are over 40, it is a good idea to do a urine test once a year and not to neglect periodic tests ordered by your employer. One of the goals of the nationwide campaigns to inform about kidney diseases is to make general practitioners aware of their epidemiology. The assessment of kidney function is important, for example, when determining the doses of drugs, e.g. antibiotics or drugs acting on the cardiovascular system. In case of impaired glomerular secretion level, nephrotoxic drugs should be avoided and the doses of most drugs should be adjusted to the degree of renal failure.
Check out what you need to know about kidneys
Kidney diseases and their functions
Ungrateful, as they do not give any warning signals, the kidneys are also underestimated. Most of us think that they only produce urine, and that is where their function ends. Nothing could be more wrong. 1500 liters of blood flow through the kidneys daily. Of this amount, they filter 150 liters of primary urine, which is then almost completely absorbed in the renal tubules, and we excrete only 1,5 liters of final urine per day. In addition, the kidneys determine the correct composition of all body fluids in our body, not just urine. They make sure that our body does not run out of anything: when necessary, they will expel the excess, otherwise they will take care of the deficient ingredients. They cleanse the body of toxic waste, and are also involved in the proper distribution of active substances contained in medicines. They are endocrine glands, which means that they produce hormones responsible, inter alia, for blood pressure and red blood cell production. They strengthen bones because they produce vitamin D3. So the damage to the kidneys does not just make the patient have problems urinating. The most valuable filter, thanks to which the blood reaching all body tissues is clean, stops working. Without kidneys, the toxic Armageddon will reign in our bodies, gradual urea poisoning will damage all organs and tissues, which can result in death.
Chronic kidney disease
Chronic kidney disease is a relatively new concept, and the division of the disease into stages is to facilitate the systematization of knowledge about the therapy and enable doctors of various specialties to treat one patient. Simply put, CKD is an impairment of kidney function lasting more than three months. It is diagnosed on the basis of three simple tests: the aforementioned urine test for albumin, blood creatinine test and blood pressure measurement. Blood pressure is one of the key words related to kidney disease. It turns out that although we do not experience any symptoms of kidney disease yet, the risk of developing heart disease and atherosclerosis has already increased fivefold, and the risk of premature death, e.g. from a heart attack, stroke or atherosclerosis of the lower extremities, has increased tenfold. The acceptance of these data by patients and doctors is extremely important, because inexorable statistics show that kidney diseases and the closely related cardiovascular diseases are rapidly becoming a disease of civilization. This is all the more worrying as CKD is usually detected only at the stage when nephroprotective treatment, i.e. pharmacological treatment, is no longer possible. In order to save the patient’s life, it is necessary to turn on nephrotoxicity – kidney transplantation or dialysis.
Kidney disease and diabetes
– Demonizing dialysis, which happens sometimes in the media, is unfounded – says Krzysztof Bednarski, MD, PhD. – Indeed, in the past, when even older types of dialyzers were used, the degree of dialysis, or cleansing of the body, was sometimes insufficient and in people who underwent this method of renal replacement therapy for a long time, it caused some havoc. Today, routinely performed monthly tests of dialysis effectiveness parameters and European standards strictly adhered to in Poland eliminate the risk of complications of renal replacement therapy.
Which does not change the fact that a kidney transplant is a much more effective, convenient and, what can I hide here, cheaper method of treating CKD. Not everyone is aware that a kidney can also be donated from a living donor. It will not hurt him in any way, because according to Dr. Bednarski, about 50% of one properly functioning kidney is enough to maintain the proper vital functions of the whole organism. The reality is that dialysis is easier than having a living kidney. – All the easier, since more or less in 2003, private dialysis centers spread in Poland – says the doctor. med. Iwona Mazur from the Polish Association of Dialyzed Persons. He adds that 30% of dialysis patients are now diabetic.
And it is diabetes that is associated with the significant increase in the incidence of CKD in the coming years, because type II diabetes is rapidly taking its toll in the world. Diabetes and hypertension are among the most serious risk factors for Chronic Kidney Disease. Elderly people and those with a family history of kidney disease are also at risk, but they are diabetics and hypertensive people – and their doctors! – should be alert to frequent check-ups and screening.
Preempt the attack
The risk of kidney disease is high; bigger. One in ten people around us should receive nephrological treatment. Or maybe we ourselves?
Let us appreciate the kidneys, the literally dirty work they do for our bodies, tirelessly filtering thousands of liters of body fluids a day, but also remember that they are therefore too busy to let us know that something is wrong with them. Let us not expect symptoms, let us act despite the apparent lack of cause for concern. Blood and urine testing is not a challenge, and it can save your life or at least its comfort.