Chronic glomerulonephritis: treatment and symptoms

Chronic glomerulonephritis is a serious disease leading to kidney failure. People who are diagnosed with this diagnosis, as a rule, do not take it seriously, because at first its symptoms do not bother them.

Often patients turn to a doctor when the disease has gone very far and they are diagnosed with renal failure (chronic). Then only hemodialysis or organ transplant can help.

In general, chronic glomerulonephritis has an immune nature. He has a prolonged course with defeat of both kidneys. Between detection of the first changes in urinalysis and the appearance of renal failure (chronic), it may take 20 years.

Provoke chronic glomerulonephritis can be stress, trauma, hypothermia, sore throat, SARS. Its manifestations depend on the activity and form of the disease.

So, chronic glomerulonephritis symptoms:

• high blood pressure;

• Edema;

• Erythrocytes and protein in the urine.

Their severity and combination may be different. Over time, the disease leads to impaired renal function. They stop coping with the excretion of the products of their vital activity and excess fluid from the body. How quickly this happens depends on the activity of the process, determined by the severity of the symptoms of the disease.

The point is that in the inflammatory process, scars form. And chronic glomerulonephritis leads to the fact that they appear on the kidney tissue, which after that can not work normally.

With an active form of the disease, kidney failure may appear in a few years. A person with a diagnosis of chronic glomerulonephritis, whose treatment should not always be done, should be under the constant supervision of the nephrologist. Only he can determine the activity of the process, and if it is high, take the necessary measures.

Sometimes for this purpose it is necessary to make a biopsy of a kidney. Under the supervision of ultrasound, a thin piece of tissue is taken by a thin special needle, which is studied to determine the stage, severity and form of the inflammatory process. This manipulation is absolutely safe, but it helps the doctor decide on the tactics and the need for treatment, in which serious medications are prescribed. Its main goal is to reduce the activity of the process and the likelihood of developing renal failure (chronic).

Treatment lasts from 4 months to 2 years. It is carried out both in a hospital and outpatient, but necessarily under the supervision of a nephrologist. After obtaining good results, the specialist should continue his observation. When an inactive form of the disease, which does not require treatment, you need to regularly make tests, check blood pressure and visit a doctor.

Because it can begin to develop rapidly, and the patient's well-being will be very good. A specialist on the results of tests and other symptoms will be able to suspect the problems that have begun. Therefore, only supervision of a qualified nephrologist from the very beginning of the disease will allow to preserve health and life.

In its development, chronic glomerulonephritis passes through the following stages:

• Kidney function preserved;

• Compensation (state of health is satisfactory, however, the disease progresses, the kidneys can no longer concentrate urine, it is diagnosed with Zimnitsky's assay) ;

• Impaired kidney function and development of renal failure (chronic);

• decompensation.

At the last stage, creatine and urea accumulate in the blood, since the kidneys can not remove them. The patient develops intoxication, uremia. In this case, thirst, vomiting, nausea, headache, weakness, skin and tongue dry, diarrhea, degeneration of organs appear. Appears from the mouth smell of ammonia and comes uremichekaya coma in severe cases.

So, chronic glomerulonephritis is a serious disease requiring observation by a specialist. Treatment should be carried out if it is actively developing, because it uses strong drugs that depress the immune system.