2023-07-23 18:00:00
Written by Fatima Khalil Sunday, July 23, 2023 09:00 PM
The kidneys are mainly responsible for filtering wastes and toxins from the blood like urea, creatinine, acid, etc. (which are all products of the body’s metabolism) and producing urine. Millions of people live with different types of kidney disease and most of them don’t even have a clue about it. This is why kidney disease is often known as the “silent killer” because most people don’t feel any difference until the disease is advanced.
According to narayanahealth, there are a number of warning signs of a kidney disorder. However, they are most often ignored or confused with alternative diseases (due to their non-specific nature).
Early symptoms of kidney disease
One of the early signs is the appearance of swelling on the ankles, feet, or legs: a person will begin to notice edema at these sites that swells when pressure is called acute edema. When kidney function begins to decline, sodium retention occurs which causes swelling in the legs and ankles. In short, anyone who notices the appearance of new edema should get an immediate assessment of their renal function after seeing a nephrologist.
Edema around the eye: indicates swelling or puffiness around the eyes caused by the accumulation of fluid in cells or tissues. It is one of the first signs of a kidney disorder. It is especially seen in individuals where there is a large amount of protein leakage through the kidneys. Loss of protein from the body reduces oncotic pressure within the vessels and leads to fluid buildup outside the blood vessels in various locations such as around the eyes.
Weakness: Early fatigue is almost always a universal symptom of kidney disease. As renal dysfunction progresses, these symptoms become more noticeable. A person may feel more tired or fatigued than on normal days and be unable to perform more strenuous activities, requiring much rest. This is largely due to the accumulation of toxins and impurities in the blood as a result of poor kidney function. Being a non-specific symptom, it is often ignored by most people and not thoroughly investigated.
Decreased appetite: secondary to the accumulation of toxins such as urea, creatinine, and acid, suppressing the appetite of the individual. Also, as kidney disease progresses, there is a change in taste, often described by patients as metallic, if one feels early satiety despite not having anything during the day, that should ring alarm bells in one’s mind and one should evaluate one’s renal function.
Early Morning Nausea and Vomiting: Another early sign of deteriorating kidney function is the presence of early morning sickness, which is often described as hitting a person when they go to the bathroom in the morning to brush their teeth.. It also contributes to a poor appetite for an individual. In end-stage renal failure, the patient tends to have multiple bouts of vomiting and a complete loss of appetite.
Anemia: The level of hemoglobin begins to drop, and the person may appear pale, without any obvious site of blood loss from the body. It is a common complication of kidney disease. This can also cause weakness and fatigue, and cause multifactorial anemia which includes low erythropoietin levels (erythropoietin is synthesized in the kidneys), low iron levels, and toxin buildup causing bone marrow suppression to name a few.
Changes in urine frequency: The person should watch very carefully the urine output. For example, urine output may decrease or you may feel the need to urinate more often, especially at night (called nocturia). It can be a warning sign and may indicate that the kidneys’ filtering units are damaged or in the process of being damaged. Sometimes this can also be a sign of some urinary tract infection or an enlarged prostate in men.
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