Chronic kidney disease refers to a number of different chronic conditions that affect the kidneys. Several of the most common types of chronic kidney diseases include inherited kidney disease, lupus nephritis, cystinosis, and more. The defining factor about chronic kidney diseases is that they will eventually cause kidney failure if the condition is not diagnosed and treated.
While there are many different causes of chronic kidney diseases, they typically prevent your kidneys from properly filtering waste and fluids from the blood and urine. When this happens for a significant period of time, your kidneys will fail, and you will need to go on dialysis until a suitable kidney donor is found. While treatment for chronic kidney disease will vary depending on your condition and how advanced it is, it typically includes the following methods.
The first step in treating chronic kidney disease is to determine what the underlying cause is. Kidney failure does not happen on its own, and there is always something that causes it. The key to lasting and effective treatment is to determine what the root cause is and to treat it accordingly.
Regardless of why you are suffering from chronic kidney failure, you will need to make some lifestyle changes. These changes are to ease the stress on your kidneys and to lessen the amount of filtering they have to do. Here are a few recommended changes:
While these changes will not cure chronic kidney disease, they will ease the stress put on your damaged kidneys.
In addition to lifestyle changes, there are a number of medications that help treat chronic kidney disease. While these medications cannot cure your condition, they are helpful in treating the side effects and underlying causes of chronic kidney disease.
In many cases, you will need to take ACE inhibitors, such as lisinopril and ramipril, to keep your blood pressure under control.
Diuretics, such as bumetanide and furosemide, can help your kidneys expel extra fluids from the body.
If your bad kidneys cause your cholesterol to increase, you will need to take medications to lower it, such as statins or niacin.
One of the side effects of bad kidneys is that they cannot expel phosphate. To help with this problem, you may need to take phosphate binders.
Chronic kidney disease can also cause you to become anaemic. If this happens, you may need to take erythropoietin to increase your red blood cell count.
Eventually, chronic kidney disease will result in kidney failure, where your kidneys are unable to filter waste from the body. When this happens, you will need a kidney transplant. Until you find a suitable donor, however, you will need to be on dialysis. Dialysis is where you get hooked up to a machine that does the work of your kidneys by filtering waste from the body.
Once kidney damage occurs, it cannot be undone. Therefore, once chronic kidney disease causes total kidney failure, your only option, aside from dialysis, will be to have a kidney transplant. During this procedure, your damaged kidneys are removed and replaced with working organs. However, you will only qualify for a kidney transplant if you have proven that you can live a kidney-healthy lifestyle.
Unfortunately, once kidney damage occurs, it is extremely difficult to reverse. Therefore, there is no cure for chronic kidney disease, and treatment revolves around helping the kidneys do their job. Eventually, however, your condition will likely result in kidney failure and you will need to go on dialysis until you receive a kidney transplant.