There is no denying that high blood pressure or hypertension is a significant cause of kidney disease and kidney failure across the world.
What hypertension does is it damages the blood vessels and filters in the kidney. This leads to the kidney losing its functional ability and making removal of waste and toxic substances from the body difficult. Once the person is diagnosed with kidney failure or end-stage renal disease either dialysis or kidney transplantation are the only two options available to find some relief for the patient.
Symptoms of kidney disease
Many signs show when your kidney is not functioning at its normal levels. First, there will be the presence of high blood pressure or hypertension, the patient will feel difficulty in urinating and urine production is affected, you can see edema (fluid retention) in the lower limbs, the patient may feel an urge to pass urine even in the dead of night,
How is kidney disease diagnosed?
A patient suffering from high blood pressure may not easily detect the presence of hypertension. Similarly, there is no apparent sign of kidney disease. Usually, specific laboratory tests help make sure of the existence of kidney disease. The tests include creatinine levels and blood urea nitrogen levels. Elevated levels of either of these mean the presence of kidney damage. Another test is proteinuria or the presence of excess protein in the urine; this is also an indication of kidney disease.
Who is at risk?
Kidney disease due to constant high blood pressure is prevalent in all groups irrespective of age, gender or region. Even then, certain groups are more prone to be affected including people with uncontrolled diabetes, people with a family history of hypertension, those with a family history of kidney disease, African Americans, South Asians and natives of Alaska.
How to prevent kidney disease?
To prevent kidney damage from high blood pressure the first thing to do is keep the blood pressure under strict control, check your blood pressure regularly, eat a healthy diet that prevents high blood pressure, get moderate exercise like walking for 30 minutes every day and take the medicines prescribed by your doctor without fail.
What is the treatment for kidney disease?
To control high blood pressure and manage kidney disease the first treatment modal is to control the high blood through proper lifestyle changes.
Certain medicines like ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers lower the blood pressure and help protect the kidneys from further damage.
Treatments need to be customized according to each individual case.
