Kidney Failure: Causes and Symptoms

Healthy kidneys clean your blood by removing excess fluid, minerals and wastes. They also make hormones that keep your bones strong and your blood healthy. But if the kidneys are damaged, they don't work properly. Harmful wastes can build up in your body. Your blood pressure may rise. Your body may retain excess fluid and not make enough red blood cells. This is called kidney failure.

Kidney failure means you have some decisions to make about your treatment. You may choose to forgo treatment. If you choose to receive treatment, your choices include hemodialysis, which requires a machine used to filter your blood outside your body; peritoneal dialysis, which uses the lining of your belly to filter your blood inside the body; and kidney transplantation, in which a new kidney is placed in your body. Each treatment has advantages and disadvantages. Your choice of treatment will have a big impact on your day-to-day lifestyle, such as being able to keep a job if you are working. You are the only one who can decide what means most to you.

Kidneys are also the source of erythropoietin in the body, a hormone that stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells. Special cells in the kidney monitor the oxygen concentration in blood. If oxygen levels fall, erythropoietin levels rise and the body starts to manufacture more red blood cells. After the kidneys filter blood, the urine is excreted through the ureter, a thin tube that connects it to the bladder. It is then stored in the bladder awaiting urination, when the bladder sends the urine out of the body through the urethra.

Causes

Extremely low blood pressure: Severe bleeding, infection in the bloodstream (sepsis), dehydration or shock can all lead to a drastic drop in blood pressure that prevents an adequate amount of blood from reaching your kidneys. Dangerously low blood pressure tends to follow traumatic injury.

Glomerulonephritis is the inflammation and damage of the filtration system of the kidneys and can cause kidney failure. Postinfectious conditions and lupus are among the many causes of glomerulonephritis.

Ureter obstruction: Kidney stones in both of the tubes leading from your kidneys to your bladder (ureters) — or in a single ureter if only one kidney is functioning — can prevent the passage of urine, as can tumors pushing in on the ureters.

Symptoms

Unfortunately, kidney failure can have very few symptoms to begin with. As your kidney function declines, it will first be detected on blood tests by your doctor. Most people don't feel any effects of kidney failure during the early stages.

The patient is almost always out of breath because the blood is filled with toxins, decreasing its oxygen carrying capacity. Also the lungs could have water due to the water retention reducing its efficiency. This lack of oxygen throughout the body causes dizziness and memory lapse.

As long as you are suffering from acute renal failure, it is not a life-threatening situation and can be cured when diagnosed in time. If you ignore the acute renal failure symptoms and allow it to progress to chronic renal failure, a total cure will be near impossible, even leading to death in severe cases. If you have doubts that you suffer from even one of the symptoms, visit your physician immediately. It could be something totally different, but if it is connected with renal failure, you could be saving a lot of problems in the future.

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