One of the hardest working and difficult organs within a body is the Kidney. The kidney works hard to filter out all of the extra waste that comes through the bloodstream. The kidney is crucial, but it seems to be under attack. The kind of lifestyles that people live often result in too much work for the kidney. Kidneys are prime for infections or for serious diseases.
Because of all of the problems that can occur in the kidney, it’s good to know the signs. Kidney infections tend to be urinary tract infections that need treatment before they become severe life threatening kidney diseases. Kidney disease come in various forms. When a person’s kidneys no longer work, it may force them to use dialysis. Knowing the signs of problems in the kidneys can save people a lot of issues.
Kidney Infection Symptoms
Considering how damaging a kidney infection can be long term, it’s good to see them right away. Kidney infections might require a person to take medications or antibiotics. If things are serious, they could even require hospitalization. The common symptoms to look out for are:
- Chills/Fever - Kidney infections will often cause changes in a person’s temperature
- Abdominal Pain - Considering the location of the kidneys and urinary tract, pain in the abdominals is common. Pain can also occur in a person’s back, flank and in the groin.
- Frequent Urination - Kidney infections will cause the person to have to urinate quite often.
- Urge to Urinate - Kidney infections can cause people to feel like they need to urinate constantly, even when they don’t really need to.
- Pain While Urinating - Many people with a kidney infection may feel pain or a burning sensation while they have to urinate.
- Oddities During Urination - This groups together several symptoms. A kidney infection can cause urine to have blood or pus within it. It can also cause the urine to take on a distinct and unpleasant smell. It may also become cloudy or discolored.
Kidney Disease Symptoms
Kidney disease is often called chronic kidney disease. From it, the kidneys will slowly shut down and stop working. As mentioned earlier, this is something to work to avoid. Kidneys that have been pushed to work too hard, or put under too much pressure can suffer kidney disease. These symptoms are typically a sign of kidney disease issues:
- Nausea/Vomiting - This is admittedly a pretty common symptom of many conditions.
- Fatigue - Kidney disease can cause some serious fatigue as well as consistently feeling weak. This fatigue can also hit a person mentally and they may feel mentally fatigued and slow throughout the day.
- Urination Changes - Typically, this will either increase or decrease in amount and need to urinate, rather than any physical changes to the urine.
- Swelling - Many people experience swelling in their feet and in their ankles.
- Itching - Some poep
- Hypertension - Kidney disease can consistently cause hypertension. This hypertension often doesn’t respond very well to attempts to keep it under control.
The end period of kidney disease is called renal failure. At this point, the kidneys no longer work and completely shut down. This can be caused by a lot of kidney problems and kidney diseases. Renal failure takes a while to occur, and chronic kidney disease typically needs to be undergoing for a while first.
Causes of Kidney Problems
For people who get a kidney infection, they may wonder where it came from. Kidney infections typically come from one way. That is bacteria. This bacteria typically will come through the urinary tract and reach the kidneys. This means women get kidney infections more often due to their shorter urethra. It’s also possible for bacteria from another infection in the body to reach the kidney, but this is pretty rare.
The causes of chronic kidney disease are a little different. They come from problems the body is always undergoing. This includes serious health conditions like Hypertension, Diabetes, Vesicoureteral Reflux and a prolonged problem with the urinary tract.