Kidney Problems and Dialysis

Kidneys:

The kidneys are a pair of bean-shaped organs that lie on either side of
the spine in the lower middle of the back. Each kidney weighs about
pound and contains approximately one million filtering units called
nephrons. Each nephron is made of a glomerulus and a tubule. The
glomerulus is a miniature filtering or sieving device while the tubule is
a tiny tube like structure attached to the glomerulus.

How do our kidneys work?

We can live quite well with only one kidney and some people live a
healthy life even though born with one missing. But while bones can
break, muscles can waste away and the brain can sleep without risk to
life, if both of your kidneys fail, as happens in end stage kidney failure,
bone, muscle or brain cant carry on. Without any kidney function our
body dies. Kidney function is essential for life!

What can our kidneys do?

Healthy kidneys act like a filter to make sure the right amount of
wastes and fluids are removed, they keep the proper balance of salts
and acids in the body, and produce hormones. Each day your kidneys
process around 200 litres of blood, with around 1 to 2 litres of waste
leaving the body as urine. Our kidneys make three important
hormones, erythropoietin, renin and active vitamin D. Erythropoietin
stimulates the production of red blood cells, renin is involved in the
control of blood pressure and active vitamin D controls calcium uptake
and helps make strong bones.

Chronic kidney disease:

Chronic kidney disease (CKD), also known as chronic renal disease, is a

progressive loss in renal function over a period of months or years. The
symptoms of worsening kidney function are unspecific, and might
include feeling generally unwell and experiencing a reduced appetite.
Often, chronic kidney disease is diagnosed as a result of screening of
people known to be at risk of kidney problems, such as those with high
blood pressure or diabetes and those with a blood relative with chronic
kidney disease. Chronic kidney disease may also be identified when it
leads to one of its recognized complications, such as cardiovascular
disease, anemia or pericarditis.

Common symptoms or signs of CKD:

The best way to determine whether a person is suffering from CKD is to

create a checklist of its symptoms and signs. If most of the symptoms
in the list are experienced by a person suspected of CKD, then there is

a huge possibility that he or she has really developed chronic kidney

disease.

As the functioning of the kidney decreases, the common symptoms of

CKD subsequently emerge. These symptoms include increased blood
pressure levels caused by the overproduction of vasoactive hormones,
increase in uric levels and rapid accumulation of potassium in the
human bloodstream.

Increasing blood pressure levels usually lead to hypertension or

congestive heart failure. Meanwhile, accumulated urea in the body
causes uremia, a medical condition wherein a person becomes
lethargic and the fibrous sac in his or her heart becomes inflamed and
sore. Lastly, accumulated potassium in the bloodstream, also known as
hyperkalemia, could make a person experience fatal episodes of
cardiac arrhythmias.

Kidney dialysis:

This kidney dialysis procedure is performed 3 times a week with the

help of a dialysis technician. What this procedure does is remove the
waste products of the bodys normal metabolism from the blood
stream. The kidneys remove waste products from the blood twenty
four hours a day seven days a week. In other words it does this process
slowly and continuously. So when a kidney dialysis procedure is
performed on a patient it is completed in about 3 to 4 hours. Because
of the rapid cleaning of the blood the patient can suffer from side
effects such as nausea and headaches. Either a dialysis nurse or
dialysis technician will help you through this.

Dialysis alone does not effectively remove all the waste from the body,
and in between treatments toxins and waste products continue to build
in the body. One way to assist the body in between dialysis
appointments is to eat a physician approved renal diet. A dialysis diet
will limit the waste produced, maintain a balance of electrolytes,
minerals, and fluid in patients who are on dialysis.

How the Kidney Dialysis procedure is performed?

The patient will be prepped for their treatment by having their AV shunt
accessed by a nurse. Usually at this point the dialysis technician will
take over to observe the patient and machine during the procedure.
The patient may need medicine for nausea during the procedure, so
the technician and nurse communicate frequently during the dialysis
treatment.

Most patients will have what is called an arterio/venous shunt in one of

their arms. What this does is allow for a large bore needle to be
inserted into this shunt for the dialysis procedure. The blood will then

be pulled through the dialysis machine and cleansed before being

returned to the body.

For those with end stage renal disease the kidney dialysis procedure is
literally a life preserving action.