Risk Factors For Kidney Diseases
Many risk factors can lead to kidney disease. It is recommended that you perform a kidney function test if you have any of the following conditions:
Diabetes
Hypertension
Infection
Long-term medication history
Family history of kidney disease
Autoimmune disease/disorder
Long-term overeating
Long-term staying-up
Long-term and frequent urine hold
Long-term high-fat and high-salt diet
Clinical Symptoms Of Kidney Diseases
According to the internationally recognized guidelines specified by American Kidney Foundation, regarding the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), chronic kidney disease is divided into 5 stages in clinical settings.
Stage | Clinical Diagnosis | GFR |
1 | Kidney function is normal | filtration rate ≥90 mL/min (normal creatinine) |
2 | Compensation stage | filtration rate 60-89 mL/min (creatinine level about 133-176) |
3 | Decompensated stage | filtration rate 30-59 ml/min (creatinine level about 177-442) |
4 | Renal failure stage | filtration rate 15-29 ml/min (creatinine level about 443-707) |
5 | Uremic stage | filtration rate ≤ 15 ml/min (creatinine level about 707 or more) |
Among those stages, stages 3-5 are considered renal failure, which is the result of the continuous progression of various chronic kidney diseases. Stage 5 is often referred to as “uremia”, which can be life-threatening if not treated in time. Patients with chronic kidney disease have different clinical symptoms in different stages:
Stage | Clinical Symptoms |
1-3 | Patients may have no symptoms, or only mild symptoms such as fatigue, loss of appetite, increased urination, and backache. A few patients have slightly more severe symptoms, such as nausea, vomiting, mild anemia, and edema. |
4 | As the disease progresses, kidney damage and other clinical symptoms will aggravate, and multi-system complications become prominent. Patients are usually presented with lethargy, muscle twitches and cramps, swelling of the lower limbs, skin itching and even gastrointestinal bleeding, chest pain, shortness of breath, hardship in lying down, and uncontrollable hypertension. |
5 | patients will show symptoms related to uremia, such as heart failure, gastrointestinal bleeding, mental disorders, muscle weakness, sensory nerve disorders, etc. The severe cases might even be life-threatening. |
When you are experiencing those symptoms, the chronic kidney disease might already be at the doorstep, please go to a hospital for examination immediately!
Significant increase in urination during the night
Foamy urine that hard to vanish
Blood in urine
Increased blood pressure(hypertension)
Unexplainable loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting
Eyelid and lower extremity edema
Fatigue for an unknown reason