This weekend, I met in 2014, at the beginning of my work, I came into contact with the first patient who returned from kidney transplant surgery in other places, and learned through exchanges that this Zhang Jie (pseudonym) said that because of this disease from surgery to now, just to live, she sold two apartments for treatment costs, and her face was full of helplessness for survival and physical and mental exhaustion in the race against time.
In 2014, not long after Zhang Jie's surgery, she returned to the local hospital to get the rejection drug, which was also considered to have just obtained a "new life", and her mental state was still good, and then she was also eating rejection drugs to maintain the life of this "new organ". Her hair was still very dark at that time, however, now that her hair is gone, the color of her pale hair is becoming more and more prominent, starting in 2022, this patient's coming to the hospital is no longer just to take rejection drugs, hemodialysis treatment, once again become the patient's current means to prolong life, which means that the transplanted kidney is gradually losing its function.
Now, the number of patients who need dialysis treatment for chronic kidney disease every year is increasing year by year, and tends to be younger, the incidence of chronic kidney disease in Chinese adults is about 11%, and the kidney source is insufficient, only 1.5% of uremia patients have the opportunity to receive kidney transplantation every day to prolong their lives, even if they receive transplantation, the service life of transplanted kidneys is limited.
The incidence of cardiovascular disease in patients with chronic kidney disease is tens of times higher than that of normal people, and chronic kidney disease exists around us like a spreading "silent epidemic disease".
The International Society of Nephrology and the World Federation of Kidney Funds have designated the second Thursday of March as World Kidney Day since 2006, with 10 March 2022 being the seventeenth World Kidney Day. I hope that more people will pay attention to protecting their kidneys.
In Chinese medicine, it is said that "the kidney is the innate foundation, the spleen is the acquired foundation", which means that the kidney is the source of human life and the engine of human life, and in the middle and young years, the kidney essence is at the highest peak, which is the most energetic and spiritual in life. The growth and development of the human body is mainly maintained by the kidneys.
Kidneys are also important physical excretory organs of the human body, each kidney has more than 1 million kidney units, and each kidney unit is like a highly efficient small filter, constantly cleaning our blood, recovering beneficial substances, forming urine and removing waste or toxins from the body, just like a small internal environmental protection factory.
According to research, the blood of the whole body in the human body passes through the kidney nearly 20 times per hour, that is, every 4 to 5 minutes, all the blood in the human body flows through the kidneys and is filtered, and the waste products of metabolism in the blood become urine and excreted, the kidney blood flow accounts for about one-fifth to one-quarter of the total body blood flow, and the glomeruli in the kidney units produce about 125ml per minute, that is, the kidneys filter and clean nearly 200 liters of blood every day, which shows that the daily workload of the kidneys is very large.
If one kidney is damaged in the early stage, and the initial symptom period is not obvious, it is not easy to be detected, and once the chronic kidney disease continues to develop, it will eventually lead to dialysis or kidney replacement because of uremia.
Conventional treatment of chronic kidney disease includes hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis and kidney transplantation, no matter what kind of treatment, it will eventually bring huge physical torture and economic disaster to patients. Not everyone can have several apartments to continue to adhere to treatment, even if it can be transplanted, there will always be a period of use.
Many people will not pay attention to urine tests, or in some rural areas or poorer urban places, because of economic problems or personal lack of attention, there may be many people who have not done a urine test in their lives, thus ignoring the invisible changes in their bodies, and then seek medical treatment when there are obvious symptoms, kidney function may have been lost for the most part, and even into uremia.
For diabetics, it is necessary to do regular urine examinations to observe the operation of kidney function.
When the following conditions occur in the urine, it is necessary to seek medical examination in time.
1. Urine discoloration, normal urine is light yellow and transparent, if the urine becomes turbid such as taomi water, or strong brown, meat washing water, soy sauce color, it indicates that the kidney filtration function may be damaged, to seek medical treatment in time;
2. There is a lot of foam in the urine, and it does not disappear for a long time, indicating that there is too much protein excreted in the urine;
3. Nocturia, normal people within 60 years of age, generally rarely nocturia, except for pregnant women, if young people increase nocturia, it is likely to be an early symptom of poor kidney function;
4. The amount of urine, too much or too little, the average urine output of normal people is about 1.5 liters per day, four to eight times a day.
If there is no large amount of sweating, fever, large amount of water, etc., the amount of urine suddenly increases or decreases, for a long time, you can check whether it is kidney disease, if the frequency of urination is frequent and the amount of urine is small, there may be a risk of urinary tract infection;
5. Urine test for diabetic patients.
It is worth noting that in the early stage I to II of diabetic nephropathy, the patient may not have the epidermal symptoms of nephropathy itself, such as no puffiness, foamy urine, etc., the urine test will be completely normal, but the measured blood glucose may be abnormal, and the damage of diabetes to the kidneys has slowly begun.
Wait until the stage of diabetic nephropathy (stage III.), there will be persistent microalbuminuria, when the routine examination of urine tested protein is positive, it will enter the ivy of the clinical diabetic nephropathy phase, and soon a large number of proteinuria and obvious edema will appear, at this time the patient's kidney function will plummet, and it will quickly deteriorate to the renal failure stage (that is, V. stage).
The process is quick for some and may be more than a decade later.
To reverse the kidney damage of diabetes or delay the further deterioration of the disease, it should be correctly diagnosed and treated in a timely manner when a trace amount of albuminuria appears.
People with chronic kidney disease, some may also have unexplained anemia, skin itching, cramps, unexplained loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, as well as increased blood pressure, fatigue, fatigue, waist pain, low back pain and so on.
At the time of physical examination, the lowermost part of the right kidney can be reached at the lower edge of the rib, while the left kidney is not easily touched, and the body surface projection of the hilar is located at the anterior wall of the abdomen at the front of the 9th rib, and the posterior wall of the abdomen is located at the intersection of the lower edge of the 12th rib and the outer edge of the vertical spinal muscle, called the kidney angle or rib angle. In kidney disease, there is often tenderness or percussion pain in this area. (A few people have changes in the position of the kidneys or a single kidney, another said)
And waist acid, low back pain does not necessarily mean kidney disease, the more common causes of low back pain are: excessive exercise or lack of exercise, lumbar muscle strain, lumbar disc herniation, lumbar spine bone hyperplasia, infection of the uterus and its appendages and chronic prostatitis in men will also feel discomfort with low back acid, and then to various kidney diseases (urinary system stones, acute renal papilla necrosis, perirenal abscesses, polycystic kidney disease, acute pyelonephritis, kidney cancer, kidney infarction, renal vein thrombosis, etc.).
Depression edema of the lower extremities in the morning and twilight is also a typical early symptom of kidney disease.
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This article is original by [Dr. Luo Health Said], the author is a member of the Chinese Anti-Cancer Association, a member of the Health Communication Working Committee of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, a health science writer, welcome to forward, comment, like, or private message with me, thank you very much!