HOW IS KIDNEY DISEASE TREATED?
You probably can manage quite well and be reasonably healthy even if your kidneys are not working completely normally. Many people can live with only one functioning kidney. The types of kidney disease affecting older individuals may develop slowly and may not seriously affect your health unless progressive damage occurs. If you become severely ill or dehydrated, your kidneys may fail to work properly. Fluids often have to be taken intravenously to correct this problem.
Some drugs that are given for other illnesses can have deleterious effects on your kidneys. Your physician should alter the dosage of these drugs so as to decrease the chance of damaging your kidneys. Other drugs that the body normally gets rid of through the kidneys may accumulate to unsafe levels if you have kidney disease. Your physician will make periodic blood tests to ensure that they are not accumulating. Of special importance is the drug digoxin, which many older people need for heart disease. This medication can accumulate quickly in your blood. The earliest symptom is usually loss of appetite. Sometimes the amount of digoxin in the blood must be measured before the proper dose can be determined.
Some types of kidney disease are treatable and the kidneys may return to normal or adequate function. Other kidney diseases are not treatable and progress to renal (kidney) failure. Some illnesses effect the kidney indirectly and if not corrected can continuously damage the kidney so that renal failure eventually occurs. Renal failure may develop rapidly or gradually through stages depending on the underlying cause.
During the early stages of many illnesses, a degree of renal insufficiency develops in which the kidney can handle some of its functions as long as it is not further damaged. Control of the underlying illness through appropriate therapy (for example, reducing uric acid levels in kidney damage due to gout, treating recurrent urinary tract infections, relieving urinary obstruction due to an enlarged prostate gland) may halt or slow the progression of renal insufficiency to renal failure at which point the kidneys can no longer excrete sufficient amounts of the body’s waste products to maintain health and life.
Once the stage of renal failure is reached, a person will die unless an artificial method to replace the kidneys’ function can be utilized. Kidney dialysis, either through an “artificial kidney” machine or through a technique that exchanges fluid in the abdomen, may be effective in prolonging life and removing the symptoms of kidney failure. An individual can be maintained in a reasonable state of health for many years with such therapy. This treatment is not tolerated by or suitable for everyone. Due to the scarcity of transplantable kidneys, and because of the many medical problems found in older persons, a kidney transplant which may be done in young individuals with kidney failure is usually not considered as a likely treatment option for kidney failure in elderly individuals
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