How is it possible to suffer kidney disease if the kidneys do not hurt me?
Written by:According to WHO, an estimated 50,000 Spaniards are treated chronic renal failure. However, more than two million are unaware they suffer. Knowing how the kidneys work and when kidney disease occurs is essential.
"How is it possible to suffer kidney disease if the kidneys do not hurt me?" This is the question that many people do when the nephrologist tells them they have kidney disease, in advanced cases.
"But if I have not noticed anything!" Usually tell patients. And the reality is that. Even if someone has the severely affected kidney, a sense of normalcy in your body can be almost absolute and even urinating normally can continue until the disease is well advanced.
It is an invisible disease because it gives few symptoms and only revealed when it is already well advanced. Hence the importance of knowing what they are for the kidneys, what possible warning signs can give, what controls we do to detect early kidney failure and what can I do to avoid it .
Kidney function
The kidneys have an important role in the body, unknown to many, and not alert us with an easily recognizable symptoms, such as pain. It is important to know more of these two bodies bean-shaped located on the back of the body on both sides of the spine and measuring about 10 cm, to consult early, and above all, to prevent possible problems arising from them .
The kidney is one of the bodies to which less if we. We all know well the function of the heart, digestive system, lungs, brain, etc.. We know what symptoms can give us and know what we should consult specialists but, if we ask about what the mission of the kidney, most people will tell us that only serves to produce urine. The mission is not only this. Another function of the kidney is to filter, purify, clean, level and counter everything we eat and drink; It is responsible for controlling all the internal environment of our body that makes the rest of the organs can function properly and, consequently, urine comes. So a kidney may be severely ill and continue to produce urine normally, giving the false impression of being healthy.
Kidney, among other things, has a purifying function (removes toxic substances reabsorbed we need and then returned to the blood) and this work is carried out both kidneys equally.
Kidney disease occurs when
Kidney failure occurs when both kidneys are affected, because if one of them suffers problems, or is removed, the other takes over the function of the first, and even will increase its size to compensate him only the work of the two. The problem is that there are a large number of diseases that can whet the kidneys lose their function without giving symptoms to alert us. A cleansing that loss of kidney function is called chronic renal failure. Doctors classify chronic renal failure in five stages, depending on the filtering capacity of the kidneys. Thus, it is considered fifth and last stage when the kidneys are unable to perform the tasks that are assigned and is necessary to initiate renal replacement therapy by dialysis or transplantation.
An estimated 50,000 Spaniards are trying to chronic renal failure, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Below there is a large number of citizens suffering from kidney failure unbeknownst. More than two million Spaniards are unaware of suffering from this disease, which is associated with increased cardiovascular risk, and is responsible for the death of a million people a year, as noted by the World Health Organization.
Inform the population about the disease is vital to prevent. According to sociological studies 84% of Spaniards know that is a cardiologist who treats heart disease but only 12% recognize that nephrologist is a physician who deals with kidney disease.
Edited by Patricia Crespo Pujante
