kidney failure: overview, symptoms, causes, treatment and prevention
Kidney failure can also be sometimes referred to as renal failure. This really is one of the most common health problems found in men and women all over the world.
Therefore, it’s important to know everything about kidney failure and how to prevent it:
What is kidney failure?
Kidney failure occurs when your kidneys are damaged and they lose the ability to filter the waste in your blood, which produced by the normal body function.
As your kidneys fail to do their job, your body becomes overloaded with toxins. This can lead to kidney failure and even be life-threatening if it’s left untreated.
There are five types of kidney failure:
1-Acute prerenal K.F
Acute prerenal kidney failure happens due to Insufficient blood flow to the kidneys.
2-Acute intrinsic K.F
Acute intrinsic kidney failure can be caused by direct trauma to the kidneys, such as physical impact or an accident. Other Causes also include toxin overload and ischemia (lack of oxygen to the kidneys).
3-Chronic prerenal K.F
When there isn’t enough blood flowing to the kidneys for an extended period of time, the kidneys begin to shrink and lose the ability to function.
4-Chronic intrinsic K.F
This happens when there is long-term damage to the kidneys due to intrinsic kidney disease. Intrinsic kidney disease is caused by a direct trauma to the kidneys, such as severe bleeding or a lack of oxygen.
5-Chronic post-renal K.F
A long-term blockage of the urinary tract prevents urination. This causes pressure and eventual kidney damage.
What are the symptoms of kidney failure?
Usually someone with kidney failure will have a few symptoms of the disease, though sometimes none is present. Possible symptoms include:
- A reduced amount of urine.
- Swelling of your legs, ankles, and feet from retention of fluids.
- Unexplained shortness of breath.
- Excessive drowsiness or fatigue.
- Persistent nausea.
- confusion.
- Pain or pressure in your chest.
- Seizures.
- Coma.
How to make sure that you have a kidney problem or not?
If you suffer from any of the symptoms mentioned above, you may need to take one or more of these tests to make sure that you have a kidney problem not any other health problem.
1-Urinalysis, a urine sample taken by the doctor to analyze it and look for any abnormalities.
2-Urine volume measurements, measuring urine output to determine if your urine volume is low, which may suggest that you have a kidney problem if it’s low to a certain degree.
3-Blood samples, your doctor may order blood tests to measure the level of substances that are filtered by your kidneys.
4-Imaging, tests such as ultrasounds, MRIs, and CT scans provide images of the kidneys themselves, along with the urinary tract to look for blockages or abnormalities in your kidneys.
5-Kidney tissue sample, tissue samples are examined for abnormal deposits, scarring, or infectious organisms.
What causes kidney failure?
In most cases, kidney failure is caused by other health problems that have done permanent damage to your kidneys ether in a short period or little by little, over time.
Some of these diseases may include: diabetes, high blood pressure, severe infection, autoimmune or genetic diseases.
Other causes may include: heart attack, dehydration, severe burns, allergic reaction, illegal drug use and drug abuse, not enough blood flowing to the kidneys and urinary tract problems.
Most of these cases don’t always lead to permanent damage. Your kidneys may go back to normal or almost normal with treatment and if you do not have other serious health problems.
What are the available treatments?
There are several treatments for kidney failure, but the type of treatment you need will depends on the stage of kidney failure which you are in.
If you are at the end stage of kidney failure (the worse stage of kidney), you only have two options:
1-Dialysis
Dialysis is performed by a machine which filters and purifies the blood the same as the kidney function in your body.
Depending on the type of dialysis, you may be connected to a large machine or a portable catheter bag. You may also need to follow a low-potassium, low-salt diet along with dialysis.
Dialysis doesn’t cure kidney failure, but it will extend your life if you go to regularly scheduled treatments.
2-Kidney transplant
The other treatment option is a kidney transplant. The advantages of a transplant are that the new kidney can work perfectly, and dialysis is no longer required.
The disadvantage is that you must take immunosuppressive drugs after the surgery. These drugs have their own side effects, some of which are serious. Also, transplant surgery is not always successful.
There’s usually a long wait to receive a donor kidney that’s compatible with your body, though if you have a living donor the process may go more quickly.
How to prevent kidney failure?
As you read the available treatment options, they aren’t good enough. So the best way to stay healthy and too far away from kidney failure is by preventing it:
1-take just the recommend dosage of any drug
Taking doses that are too high (even of common drugs such as aspirin) can create high toxin levels in a short amount of time. This can overload your kidneys and lead to serious kidney problems eventually.
2-stay away from chemicals
Whenever possible, you should limit your exposure to chemicals, such as household cleaners, tobacco, pesticides, and other toxic products that may affect your normal kidney function.
3-regular checkup
Many kidney or urinary tract conditions lead to kidney failure when they’re not diagnosed early and did not managed properly.
Therefore, a regular checkup and following with your doctor can help you resolve any kidney problem before it turns to an end stage kidney failure which is hard to manage.
