what ACTUALLY causes renal failure?
admin | Mar 19, 2013 | 3 comments
I read that infections, injuries and illness can cause damage which makes the blood supply less…but what damage actually happens? For example does scarring stop the blood travelling or what? 10 points for best answer!
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Renal failure is caused by two different etiologies called prerenal and post renal causes. Prerenal is when something occurs to the heart, blood system or body that causes the renal failure. The best example is sepsis (overwhelming infection) this syndrome causes extremely low blood pressure which in turn does not allow blood to flow to the kidney. The kidney’s job is to remove harmful products from the blood, specifically urea (ammonium packaged up nicely). If the urea cannot be removed the levels increase and you can get very sick and die. A post renal failure is something that occurs in the urinary tract such as obstruction from a prostate. The urine backs up into the ureters then into the kidney. When the urine backs up into the kidney it can no longer produce more urine to get rid of the urea, therefore causing a build up in the blood. Sometimes diseases such as lupus, diabetes and other diseases cause damage directly to the kidney’s filtration system called the glomerulous. Its a small microscopic ball of capillaries that filteres the blood. If there is too much sugar, high blood pressure or white cells attacking the glomerulous it can be damaged. If the filtration system cannot filter then again the urea builds up in the blood.
So the damage can be in multiple places but they effect the same thing, filtration. The scarring of the kidney is more specifically happening to the glomerulous and, yes, it does prevent the kidney from filtering which cause a build up of the urea in the blood.
Hope this helps.
Renal failure is failure of THE KIDNEYS. if you are a diabetic, all the extra sugar molecule in the blood treat the insides of your kidneys like scouring pads, and the high blood sugar “wears out” your kidneys too fast. if the diabetes is not treated, the result is RENAL FAILURE, which requires either life-long dialysis, or a kidney transplant.
yes. the scar tissue from the damage caused by the extra sugar molecules WILL block the flow of blood through the kidneys. This causes high blood pressure.
Attached to the kidneys are some hormone glands called the ADRENAL GLANDS. ONE of the functions of the adrenal glands is to tell your body HOW MUCH blood to make (blood is actually made in the bones). if you have kidney disease or have to have a kidney removed (like because of cancer) then you body may make LESS blood, and the result is ANEMIA.
In the case of diabtes, there are two MAIN causes.
The first is capillary damage do to glycated red blood cells. This means that the red blood cells have suga mulecule attached to them. As the red blood cells get pumped through the system, those sugar molecules act like little knives, slicing up the capillaries (which are not much large than a single red blood cell.) This damage is often not repairable, and the kidneys start to fail.
IF the blood sugar levels get to high (like 400-600) for a period of time (like 2-3 days) you body starts producing KETONES. These are toxic chemicals that are normally filtered out by the kidneys. But with blood sugar levels that high the amount of ketones is too high, and the kidnesy are poisoned (along with most of your other internal organs).
The bad thing about kidneys is that much of the damage done is NOT repairable, and is in fact cumulative. That means that once the kindeys have a little damge, they STAY damaged. A little damage here, a little damage there – - – and it all adds up. Eventually, there is just so much damage that they fail.
Note that kidneys often fail in stages — 90%, then 80%, then 70% —- down to 20% and 15%, and then Complete Renal Failure.
The “Percentage of Kidney Function” is generally figured using the Glomular Filtration Rate (GFR). This is a Blood Test that the doctor can take, and can tell you how well your kidneys are doing.
You can actually do quite well down to about 20%. After that the chemcials in your system start to build up, and you feel like hell! Since kidneys that badly damaged don’t usually heal, you need either dialysisis for the rest of your life, or (if you health is otherwise OK) a transplant.