How to Treat Edema of Nephrotic Syndrome

Edema is a common complication of Nephrotic Syndrome. In serious case, the fluid may collect in lung, blood vessels and every part in body, which can cause difficult breath and even heart failure.and it is attributable to two causes:

Firstly, the malfunctioned kidney fail to filter extra fluid and sodium from blood, thus leading to retention of fluid and sodium.


Secondly, the filtering system is damaged. Thus, the protein leak into urine and cause low protein level in blood. The fluid in blood filter into tissues, leading to edema.


Treatment


1.Limiting intake of salts and fluid is an important part in relieving edema. The patients are recommended to reduce salts intake to 3~5 g/d. Also, they need to regulate the salt intake based on the edema degree and potassium concentration in blood.


2. Usually, diuretic drugs are prescribed to the patients. They can promote the secretion of fluid, thus relieving retention of fluid and sodium.


3.If the patients suffer from serious edema, they are recommended to stay in bed until edema disappears.


4. As edema is very likely to cause high blood pressure or aggravate it, the patients are usually prescribed with ACEI and ARB drugs to control blood pressure. Also, these drugs has certain effect in preserving renal function.


5.Edema is attributable to heavy protein loss in urine. High protein intake can increase the production of urea to put more strain on kidney. The patients with Nephrotic Syndrome are recommended to limit protein intake to 1 g/kg per body weight.


6. Hormone and immunosuppressive drugs can suppress the fierce immune inflammatory response to restrict the leakage of protein into urine. Therefore, they can relieve edema to some extent.


The therapy for edema should be aiming at restoring the impaired kidney and rebuilding the structure of filtering system. If these treatment goals are achieved, the edema and relative symptoms of Nephrotic Syndrome will disappear gradually.