Everyone should be alert, these 8 signals indicate kidney problems!

The kidney is one of the most important organs in the human body. It not only removes waste and excess substances from the body, but also produces hormones to adjust blood pressure and promote red blood cell production. Therefore, kidney health is essential to overall health. Since the kidney has a strong compensatory function and "slightly injured but not out of the line of fire", early kidney disease may not show any symptoms. When obvious discomfort occurs, kidney damage may already be quite serious. Therefore, early detection of the patient's kidney "help" signal is particularly important for early diagnosis of kidney disease.

1. Weakness and fatigue

Fatigue and easy fatigue are common symptoms of kidney disease patients. Many patients have poor physical fitness and are prone to fatigue after exercise under normal circumstances, so the fatigue symptoms caused by kidney disease may be masked.

The kidneys normally help maintain the body's electrolyte balance and acid-base balance while removing metabolic waste. When kidney function is impaired, these balances can be disrupted, leading to muscle weakness and fatigue.

Protein plays a key role in maintaining muscle and tissue health. In people with kidney disease, protein is lost through the urine, and protein loss can cause fatigue.

People with kidney disease often have anemia, and insufficient oxygen supply in the blood can also cause fatigue and weakness.

2. Backache and lumbago

Lower back discomfort, back pain, or backache may be related to kidney problems such as kidney cysts, kidney stones, or nephritis.

Acute nephritis may cause deep percussion pain and dull pain in both kidneys, most of which is unilateral.

The acute low back pain caused by kidney stones is severe pain, generally manifested as cramps in the waist and abdomen. The patient is in great pain, and there may also be one or two fixed pain points in the local area of ​​the waist.

When the size of a renal cyst increases and compresses the surrounding blood vessels or tissues, it will cause pain symptoms. The low back pain caused by a renal cyst may be unilateral or bilateral, which is related to the location of the cyst.

3. Swelling of eyelids or lower limbs

Edema caused by kidney problems is generally divided into two categories: nephritic edema and nephrotic edema.

Nephritic edema is caused by decreased glomerular filtration rate and normal reabsorption of water and sodium by the renal tubules, which leads to water and sodium retention in the body. Nephritic edema has a high protein content in the interstitial space, and edema often starts from the eyelids and face.

Nephrotic edema is caused by low plasma protein due to a large amount of proteinuria. Nephrotic edema has low interstitial protein content and is affected by gravity. The lower the position, the more likely it is to edema. Therefore, edema often starts from the lower limbs and is mostly pitting edema.

4. Foamy urine

Foamy urine may occur in the early stages of kidney disease, but this phenomenon is very easy to be ignored.

Abnormal increase in protein content in urine is one of the common causes of foamy urine and is also an important clinical manifestation of various diseases, especially kidney disease. Foamy urine occurs when protein in urine increases abnormally after kidney damage occurs.

The typical manifestation of proteinuria is visible foamy urine, and the foam cannot be washed away when the toilet is flushed.

The characteristics of proteinuria are that the bubbles are relatively small and fine, the foam layer is relatively thick, and the duration is relatively long.

If the foam in the urine is large or of varying sizes and lasts for a short time, it is because some organic and inorganic substances in the urine increase the tension of the urine. This is normal foam and there is no need to be nervous.

5. Hematuria

Normal fresh urine is a light yellow transparent liquid. If it is red and turbid, you should consider the possibility of hematuria, which is macroscopic hematuria. In most cases, the increase of red blood cells in urine can only be found under a microscope, which is called microscopic hematuria.

Hematuria can be seen in nephritis or urinary tract infection, kidney stones, renal tuberculosis and tumors.

6. Nausea and vomiting

In the early stages of kidney disease, due to the large amount of protein loss, hypoproteinemia occurs, which causes not only limb edema but also gastrointestinal edema, leading to digestive tract dysfunction, manifested as nausea and vomiting.

When the kidneys are damaged, the function of concentrating urine decreases, which increases the patient's nocturnal urine output. The body loses a lot of water at night, the blood becomes concentrated, and the blood urea nitrogen level rises in the morning. Therefore, nausea and vomiting are more likely to increase in the morning.

7. Changes in urine volume

Changes in urine volume are an important signal for detecting early kidney disease. Most kidney diseases will cause changes in urine volume in patients in the early stages.

Under normal circumstances, the human body's daily water intake is about 2 L, and the normal urine volume should be around 1.5 L. If the urine volume continues to decrease or increase, kidney disease should be considered.

Tubulointerstitial diseases, polyuria in acute renal failure, diabetes, diabetes insipidus, etc. may increase urine volume and even cause polyuria.

In acute or rapidly progressive nephritis or nephrotic syndrome, urine volume may decrease or even become oliguric.

8. Hypertension

Hypertension is a common complication of kidney disease. The kidney plays an important role in regulating blood pressure. Kidney damage may affect blood pressure control. High blood pressure can damage the kidneys. When the kidneys are damaged, water metabolism is impaired, which further leads to high blood pressure. The two can be said to be "harming each other."

Most patients will experience symptoms such as headache, dizziness, insomnia and memory loss in the early stages.

As time goes by, the condition will further deteriorate. During later examinations, the patient may have symptoms such as bleeding, oozing, and optic disc edema in the fundus.

summary

When the above clues of kidney disease are found, the nephrologist should promptly perform further examinations on the patient, such as urine routine, 24-hour proteinuria quantification, and renal function tests. For patients with unexplained moderate or large amounts of proteinuria, in order to clarify the diagnosis of kidney disease, if there are no contraindications to renal puncture, renal biopsy should be actively performed to enable the patient to obtain a clear pathological diagnosis of kidney disease and further adopt appropriate treatment plans.