Stages of kidney disease and relative treatments
Why does one american on nine have kidney disease?
If you are suffering from chronic renal failure, your kidneys are eventually losing their ability of removing excess wastes from your blood. And this condition only worsens over time, although you can live with it for years unless the real symptoms start surfacing. If chronic kidney disease affects near about two out of a thousand people in the US, thirteen percent of the US population has kidney disease. And numbers are raising.
It is more importantly, the result of other disorder and diseases which damage our kidneys. The two main conditions that can lead to such severity include high blood pressure and diabetes.
According to most doctors, the disease has no specific cure, but in my experience there are ways to greatly improve your kidney health thanks to the latest treatments.
For sure, when stages of kidney disease at the time of diagnose is early, lifestyle changes and medications can help slow the progression of this ailment.
The five stages of kidney disease
According to the National Kidney Foundation, there are five stages of kidney failure that act as measures to determine the severity of the complications. These stages are based on glomerular filtration rate level (GFR), which gives a clear idea of how quickly your kidneys can clean your blood.
- Healthy and normal functioning kidneys will show a minimum GFR level of 90 mL/min.
- Stage 1 kidney failure patients will also disport similar GFR levels, whilst suffering from a bit of kidney damage.
- Stage 2 renal patients’ exhibit mildly decreased GFR between 60 to 89 ml/min.
- When the numbers start dropping to within 30 to 59 ml/min, you can call it a Stage 3 renal failure.
- Severely decreased GFR levels of 15 to 29 ml/min categorizes Stage 4 kidney failure
- Those with less 15 ml/min can be termed as patients with complete kidney failure who will have to survive on dialysis.
Symptoms of kidney disease at different stages of kidney disease
Normally in stages 1 and 2, no noticeable symptoms are visible. The disease is usually diagnosed through tests that detect a few associated conditions like high blood pressure, higher levels of urea or creatinine in blood, protein or blood in urine or any kind of evidence of renal damage from MRI, Ultrasound, CT scan or contrast X-ray.
The first step towards staunching the disease in the early stages is by adopting a healthy lifestyle and taking blood pressure medications.
Preventive measures include intake of a diet low in cholesterol and fat, low salt diet, not smoking, doing regular exercises and close monitoring of blood sugar levels.
Stage 3 patients may develop signs of early bone disorder or anemia.
In stage 4, kidneys are gradually losing the ability to remove waste products from your body and you would need to prepare for either dialysis treatment or may be kidney transplant.
The end stage renal failure is stage 5 wherein there is a near complete dysfunction of kidneys. Your body accumulates wastes, toxic substances and wastes since you are kidneys are no more able to clear them out.
In this stage, you will require a transplant and dialysis to survive. Dialysis ensures an overall survival rate of 32% for 5 years where as a with kidney transplant, you have a survival rate of approx 90% for 2 years, depending on the donor.
About the Author
Michaelw Hi, my name is Michael and in this blog I'm gonna share the story of how I got off kidney dialysis for good. Getting off dialysis isn't easy at all, and that's why I'm trying to help people as much as I can.
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