Early Kidney Disease Symptoms & Detection: What to Watch For

Healthy kidneys remove waste from blood that is circulated throughout the body. Any waste is sent to the bladder and released as urine. Kidney disease is a serious problem that could become fatal if left untreated.

Identification

• People with kidney disease do not typically show symptoms of the illness early on. Signs of kidney disease show up through routine blood or urine tests.

Recommended Tests

• Three tests recommended by the National Kidney Foundation are a blood pressure measurement, a check for albumin in the urine, and a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) calculation.

Understanding the Tests

• High blood pressure can mean the kidneys are damaged. Kidney disease can also be represented by the kidney̵7;s inability to separate albumin, a blood protein, from the waste, indicated by excess amounts of albumin in urine samples. A high level of creatinine in the blood, measured by a GFR, is another sign of kidney disease.

Significance

• The National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse claims that GFR is the best indicator of kidney disease. A GFR level of 90 or above indicates a normal level, 30 to 59 indicates moderate chronic kidney disease (CKD), 15 to 29 is severe CKD, and below 15 represents kidney failure.

Symptoms

• Symptoms of moderate CKD are anemia and weak bones. The number and severity of symptoms get worse as the disease progresses.