Chronic Kidney Disease

A common pathology that accompanies heart failure, diabetes mellitus and other diseases is chronic kidney disease (abbreviated as CKD). The likelihood of a fatal outcome with progressive CKD is high. Therefore, the correct diagnosis of this disease in the early stages is very important.

An important moment in the development of CKD is the latent slow violation of one after another of the kidney functions, the development of which the patient often does not even suspect.

Chronic kidney disease is the final stage of such kidney lesions as chronic pyelonephritis, hypertension, malignant hypertension, urolithiasis, hydronephrosis, urinary tract tumor, renal artery stenosis, etc.

Patients with renal dysfunction experience increased fatigue and general weakness, swelling, joint pain, yellowing of the skin and eye protein, and a variety of skin lesions. Chronic kidney disease has a characteristic sign - an unpleasant odor of urea from the mouth. These are external manifestations. CKD causes a global intoxication of internal organs, as a result of which the metabolic process is disrupted, dystrophic changes in the body develop. The most terrible thing is that this process is irreversible.

Chronic kidney diseases in the late stages are characterized by a sharp increase in the content of nitrogenous slags in the blood. Because of this, there is nausea, sometimes vomiting. Violated haematopoietic function and the functions of the nervous system, the thyroid gland and the cardiovascular system. This stage is called terminal.

If chronic kidney disease is detected at an early stage, it will allow to take medical and preventive measures that will prevent the premature development of the terminal stage of the disease.

In the early stages of CKD, the goal of treatment is to slow the development of kidney damage and maintain a constant internal environment of the body. To do this, you need to take a liquid in such a quantity that diuresis is in the range of 2 to 3 liters every 24 hours. With arterial hypertension, you must limit salt intake, you do not need to eat dried apricots, raisins, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes at a high level of potassium in the blood, it is worth reducing protein intake if the level of nitrogenous slag increases.

To date, the treatment of chronic renal failure in later stages is carried out with peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis.

The method of peritoneal dialysis is suitable for patients with good residual renal function, diabetics, elderly people and people living far from the hemodialysis centers. This procedure is simple, it can be done by the patient himself without assistance. This method consists in diffusion of slags through the peritoneum, a sterile solution is introduced into the abdomen cavity through the catheters.

Hemodialysis is the main method of treatment of CKD. It is based on diffusion from the blood through a translucent membrane into the dialysis solution of urea, uric acid, creatinine, and other substances that are retained in the blood in this disease. Hemodialysis is carried out with the aid of the apparatus "artificial kidney".

Chronic kidney disease in the terminal stage may require radical treatment - kidney transplants.

To effectively treat chronic kidney disease, it is very important to determine this disease at an early stage. Therefore, with the slightest suspicion and anxiety, you should immediately seek medical advice. However, even if CKD is found at later stages with the use of active treatment methods, the patient's life expectancy can be increased by an average of 12-15, and sometimes even by 20 years.