The Progression of End-Stage Renal Failure

What is End-stage Renal Failure (ESRF)? ESRF or uremia refers to the advanced stage of kidney disease. Uremia describes a series of clinical symptoms of advanced kidney disease, when one’s medical condition progresses to End-stage Renal Failure, he or she almost loses the kidney function completely. Uremia appears as a result of the Renal Failure.

The early stage of ESRF or uremia is called Chronic Renal Failure. The diving line of different stages of Renal Failure is based on the GFR (glomerular filtration rate). When one’s GFR is less than 15%, the medical definition is called ESRF. While one’s GFR is less than 30% but over 15%, it is called Chronic Renal Failure (CRF). It can be said that CRF is the prelude of ESRF. By experiences, the reduction of GFR from 30% to 15%, sometimes, is just a momentary matter.
Therefore, once the disease condition progresses to Chronic Renal Failure, the patients should be extremely careful to the treatment received. Otherwise the illness condition can progress to End-stage Renal Failure promptly even before you know it.

By clinical experience, the reduction of GFR can happen within several days or months. That’s why Renal Failure is regarded as the prelude of advanced kidney disease.

I sincerely recommend you to take timely treatment as early as possible. In the early stage of CKD (Chronic Kidney Disease), for example, CKD stage 2, there still stands a chance to reverse it if take immediate as well as correct treatment. If failed, the Renal Failure is awaiting you on the road ahead.

How to Prevent Renal Damage in PKD

Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) is a genetic kidney disorder. Although there is no cure for PKD yet, early intervention and treatment can improve the individuals’ health and make the avoid developing Renal Failure.

How does PKD cause Renal Failure?

PKD is featured by numerous cysts usually growing on both kidneys. With age, the cysts will increase both in size and number. The cysts will oppress the surrounding healthy nephrons thus resulting in renal ischemia and anoxia. Just like people, if the nephrons can not get sufficient oxgen supply, they will die. Finally, the kidneys will fail completely. The completely necrotic kidneys are just like hard stones so the blood can not pass through them at all.

How to prevent renal damage in PKD?

The prognosis of PKD is extremely variable. The earlier they receive treatment, the better the prognosis will be. However, in the early stage of PKD, most of the patients do not have discomforts or symptoms at all so they do not take the disease seriously at all and miss the best treatment opportunity. In clinic, most of the patients with PKD have lost more than half of their renal function when they show noticeable symptoms.

In order to prevent renal damage in PKD, the treatment should primarily focus on inhibiting the enlargement of cysts.

Chinese herbal medicine has been used in treating PKD and showed an enormous therapeutic effect.

The enlargement of cysts is attributed to the secretion of cystic fluid by the lining cells of cysts. The effective integrants in Chinese herbal medicine can promote the functional transformation of the cysts thus making them lose secretion function.

Moreover, the effective medicine can dilate renal arteries. In this way, it can improve the blood supply and oxgen to kidneys so as to stop renal function decline.

If the patients with PKD can receive the above systemic treatment, they will be able to stop the kidney damage and avoid developing Renal Failure completely.

How to Protect Your Arteriovenous Fistula

When people with renal failure, dialysis become one of the few options left. Before performing dialysis, one must build a vascular access, which is the so-called vascular access or arteriovenous fistula.


Vascular access functions as leading the blood from human body, guiding them into dialyzer, after the blood is purified by the machine, channeling them back to human body afterwards. It is called arteriovenous fistula. It’s the lifeline to those who sustain their lives with dialysis.


Arteriovenous fistula can be categorized as temporary and permanent. To those people with fistula, what should they do to protect their lifeline from being impaired? Here are some suggestions.


1. Avoid squeezing the limb with fistula.

▪ Don’t carry handbags, baskets or anything else over the arm with fistula.

▪ Don’t press the arm or leg with fistula beneath your body as sleeping.

▪ Avoid receiving any kinds of operations in the very limb, such as measure your blood pressure or taking I.V. etc.


2. To those with delicate blood vessels, mild housework should be recommended for him or her. They are able to complete some daily mild housework.


3. Limbs should keep warm especially in winter.


4. Take good control of your weight, avoiding dramatic weight fluctuations. Weight controlling is good for the prevention of low blood pressure during or after dialysis.


5. The point of puncture should be taken good care, make sure it is clean and dry.


6. Do not compress the puncture point for a long time or forceful.


7. Adjust the dose of erythropoietin as hemoglobin reached the standard.


8. Get used to touch the point every day. If sense any change, talk with your doctor immediately.


Those are some simple tips for those on dialysis with  arteriovenous fistula. All those are far from enough to protect your lifeline. What else you want to know, feel free to chat with our online experts for free advice.

Is Kidney Transplant the only Treatment for Renal Failure

At present, dialysis and kidney transplant are the most common treatment methods for Renal failure. Yes, dialysis and kidney transplant are really very important treatment for patients of renal failure, and kidney transplant has solved the life of many patients or at least it prolongs the life of the patients to some extent. While, is kidney transplant the only treatment for renal function?

For patients with rather poor renal function, kidney transplant may be the best choice for them if they are suitable for this operation and don’t have the contraindications for kidney transplant. Although, at present, babies of several months and elder people of eighty can adopt kidney transplant, the more suitable age for the operation is 13 to 60 years old considering the effects and recovery for the operation. Of course, if the patients’ condition is allowable, this limitation can be extended properly. But when the patients are older than 55 years, the complications of the operation will increase and the risk will increase. For the patients with Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, they need to take treatment for them. And after one month after the recovery of the liver function the patients can adopt kidney transplant. And patients with the following disease are not suitable for kidney transplant: mental disease, chronic respiratory function failure, heart failure, coagulation system disorders and so on. Besides, patients with serious coronary disease or some kinds of nephritis and patients with serious polycystic kidney disease accompanied with serious polycystic liver disease need to be cautious for the kidney transplant.



Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy. The adoption of Micro-Chinese Medicine Osmotherapy effectively protects kidney function from further decline, and creates a favorable environment for damaged cells’ self-repairing, but the recovering of cells by Chinese medicine is relatively fragile and slow. Then stem cell works in two aspects, A) help with repairing damages of other body parts (like blood vessel damages), and this consolidates the favorable environment for damaged cells self-repairing. B). help with repairing these damaged kidney cells, and provide them with necessary materials. Based on restoring functions of damaged cells, the overall kidney function can enjoy an improvement, but his improvement extent is not satisfying, and especially for end stage kidney failure patients.

A Brief Overview Kidney Failure

Healthy kidneys clean your blood by removing excess fluid, minerals and wastes. They also make hormones that keep your bones strong and your blood healthy. But if the kidneys are damaged, they don't work properly. Harmful wastes can build up in your body. Your blood pressure may rise. Your body may retain excess fluid and not make enough red blood cells. This is called kidney failure.

Types of kidney failure

Renal failure can broadly be divided into two categories: acute kidney injury or chronic kidney disease. The type of renal failure is determined by the trend in the serumcreatinine.

Causes of kidney failure

Kidney failure can occur from an acute situation or from chronic problems.
In acute renal failure, kidney function is lost rapidly and can occur from a variety of insults to the body. The list of causes is often categorized based on where the injury has occurred.

Prerenal causes (pre=before + renal=kidney) causes are due to decreased blood supply to the kidney. Examples ofprerenal causes of kidney failure are:
hypovolemia (low blood volume) due to blood loss;

dehydration from loss of body fluid (for example, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating,fever);

poor intake of fluids;

medication, for example, diuretics ("water pills") may cause excessive water loss;

and abnormal blood flow to and from the kidney due to obstruction of the renal artery or vein.

Symptoms of kidney failure include:

High levels of urea in the blood, which can result in:

Vomiting and/or diarrhea, which may lead to dehydration

Nausea

Weight loss

Nocturnal urination

Foamy or bubbly urine

More frequent urination, or in greater amounts than usual, with pale urine

Less frequent urination, or in smaller amounts than usual, with dark coloured urine

Blood in the urine

Pressure, or difficulty urinating

A build up of phosphates in the blood that diseased kidneys cannot filter out may cause:

Itching

Bone damage

Muscle cramps (caused by low levels of calcium which can cause hypocalcaemia)

A build up of potassium in the blood that diseased kidneys cannot filter out (called hyperkalemia) may cause:

Abnormal heart rhythms

Muscle paralysis

Failure of kidneys to remove excess fluid may cause:

Swelling of the legs, ankles, feet, face and/or hands

Shortness of breath due to extra fluid on the lungs (may also be caused by anemia)

Polycystic kidney disease, which causes large, fluid-filled cysts on the kidneys and sometimes the liver, can cause:

Pain in the back or side

Healthy kidneys produce the hormone erythropoietin which stimulates the bone marrow to make oxygen-carrying red blood cells. As the kidneys fail they produce less erythropoietin resulting in fewer red blood cells being produced to replace the natural breakdown of old red blood cells. As a result the blood carries less haemoglobin, which is known as anemia. This can result in:

Feeling tired and/or weak

Memory problems

Difficulty concentrating

Dizziness

Low blood pressure

Other symptoms include:

Appetite loss, a bad taste in the mouth

Difficulty sleeping

Darkening of the skin