What Is Chronic Kidney Disease? Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Prevention
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) happens when your kidneys gradually lose their ability to filter waste products and excess fluid from your blood. At first, it typically causes no symptoms, but as your kidney function deteriorates and waste products build up in your blood, you may begin to feel sick.
Your kidneys can become damaged and lose function over time due to several different factors, including high blood pressure and diabetes. You’re more likely to develop chronic kidney disease the longer you have underlying conditions that contribute to it, and your risk also grows with age in general, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).
Chronic kidney disease is grouped into stages, from less severe to more advanced disease. What stage of CKD you have will determine what treatments or lifestyle modifications your healthcare provider recommends. If your CKD progresses to kidney failure, you’ll need to undergo regular dialysis or receive a kidney transplant to stay alive.
You may have a higher risk of CKD if you belong to a racial or ethnic group with higher rates of diabetes or high blood pressure, such as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, Pacific Islander, or American Indian, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
About 37 million Americans have CKD, and millions more are at risk of it, the National Kidney Foundation notes.
While learning that you have chronic kidney disease can be scary, lifestyle measures and newer treatments can significantly slow the loss of kidney function, and people with CKD often live for many years without experiencing significant disruptions to daily life.
Chronic kidney disease typically causes no noticeable symptoms in its earlier stages. If you develop symptoms of CKD, that means you likely have an advanced stage of disease, NIDDK notes. Symptoms of CKD are caused by the buildup of waste products in your blood, excess fluid buildup in your body, and other consequences of poor kidney function.
Symptoms of advanced chronic kidney disease may include:
Most symptoms of kidney disease are nonspecific, the Mayo Clinic notes — meaning that they could be caused by many different conditions. Ideally, you’ll know that you have CKD long before you develop any symptoms, based on tests that measure your kidney function.
But it’s estimated that about 40 percent of people with severely reduced kidney function (not kidney failure) are unaware they have CKD, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Chronic kidney disease develops due to damage that occurs in the kidneys over time. This damage can be related to different health conditions. You’re also more likely to develop CKD if you have a family history of kidney failure, according to NIDDK.
The following diseases or conditions may cause or contribute to CKD:
Diabetes and high blood pressure are together responsible for about two-thirds of CKD cases, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
When you have diabetes, elevated blood glucose levels can damage both large and small blood vessels over time — including the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys that are responsible for filtering waste products out of your blood. Kidney damage due to diabetes is known as diabetic nephropathy.
High blood pressure means that the pressure against the walls of your blood vessels is higher than it should be. This extra pressure can damage the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys over time.
Your kidneys are constantly at work, filtering all the blood in your body about every 30 minutes, the CDC notes. In people with chronic kidney disease, this filtering process is less efficient, meaning that your kidneys don’t remove all the waste and extra fluid that they should.
Depending on how well your kidneys are able to filter your blood, CKD is divided into five different stages — from mild disease to kidney failure. Each stage is defined by your glomerular filtration rate (GFR), a measure of kidney function, the Cleveland Clinic notes.
Here are the five stages of chronic kidney disease:
According to the Cleveland Clinic, the most commonly seen stage of CKD is stage 3. The GFR for each stage of CKD is 90 or higher (stage 1), 60 to 89 (stage 2), 30 to 59 (stage 3), 15 to 29 (stage 4), and below 15 (stage 5).
Your doctor will diagnose chronic kidney disease based on your health history, blood tests, and probably at least one urine test. Based on these results, your doctor may order imaging tests or a kidney biopsy to get a better picture of what is going wrong in your kidneys, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The most commonly used tests to diagnose CKD include:
If blood and urine tests show that you have CKD, your doctor may order any of the following imaging tests to look at the structure and size of your kidneys:
Ultrasound is the most commonly used imaging test to assess CKD, according to the Mayo Clinic. Other tests may be used when ultrasound is ineffective.
Taking a small sample of kidney tissue can help determine what’s going wrong in your kidneys. To do this, your doctor will typically numb the area and insert a long, thin needle through your skin into one of your kidneys. The tissue sample will be sent to a lab for analysis.
To help prevent further damage to your kidneys and slow the progression of your CKD, your doctor may recommend certain lifestyle measures and prescribe medications. If your CKD progresses to the point of kidney failure, you’ll need to start dialysis or undergo a kidney transplant.
Your doctor will order regular blood tests to evaluate your kidney function. The main goals of treatment and management of CKD are to keep your GFR (a measure of kidney function) the same, and for your urine albumin (protein) level to be the same or lower, according to NIDDK.
Depending on the specific causes and stage of your CKD, your doctor may prescribe one or more of the following medications to help preserve kidney function:
You may also benefit from taking certain medications to help control symptoms of CKD, the Mayo Clinic notes:
Your doctor or a dietitian may recommend certain lifestyle measures to help reduce damage to your kidneys. Recommended lifestyle changes may include the following:
If your CKD progresses to the point of kidney failure, you’ll need to start dialysis (unless an immediate kidney transplant is an option). Dialysis is the process of filtering waste products and excess fluid from your blood when your kidneys can no longer do this.
There are two main types of dialysis, according to the National Kidney Foundation:
Dialysis does not improve your kidney function, and you’ll need to continue with it for the rest of your life unless you receive a kidney transplant. While the average life expectancy for people on dialysis is 5 to 10 years, many people live much longer, according to the National Kidney Foundation.
A kidney transplant may help you live longer and sustain a better quality of life, according to the National Kidney Foundation. But it involves major surgery that carries risks, and you’ll need to take anti-rejection medication for as long as your new kidney is working — which raises your risk of infection and some types of cancer.
A transplanted kidney can come from either a deceased or living donor. You may decide, with your doctor, to get a transplant before you need dialysis or soon after starting on dialysis, which can have long-term health benefits.
It’s likely that your doctor or dietitian will recommend dietary changes to help slow the progression of chronic kidney disease. Depending on the stage of CKD, these changes may include reducing sodium or phosphorus in your diet and getting the right amount of protein or potassium, according to NIDDK.
It’s important for all people with CKD, regardless of its stage, to limit salt and sodium in your diet to help control blood pressure. That generally means consuming less than 2,300 milligrams of sodium daily, NIDDK notes.
You may be able to reduce your sodium intake by preparing your own meals, choosing fresh over packaged or processed foods, opting for herbs and spices rather than salt for flavor, and choosing low-sodium versions of canned or prepared foods.
Since eating protein results in waste products that your kidneys filter out of your blood, limiting protein intake is also advised to limit the amount of work your kidneys have to do.
You can probably still eat small portions of protein-heavy foods like meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy products. Talk to your doctor or dietitian about the right amount of protein in your diet.
If your kidney function declines past a certain point, you may need to limit the amount of phosphorus you consume. If phosphorus builds up in your blood because your kidneys can’t remove it well enough, your bones can lose calcium and become weaker.
Phosphorus is a mineral that is found in many foods naturally, and is also added to many processed foods as ingredients that contain “phos-“ in the title, such as phosphates. Foods naturally high in phosphorus include meat, poultry, fish, dairy products, oats, bran cereals, beans, lentils, and nuts.
If your kidneys can no longer effectively remove potassium from your blood, you’ll need to make sure you get enough — but not too much — potassium in your diet.
Many foods are naturally high in potassium, including oranges, bananas, potatoes, tomatoes, brown rice, bran cereals, whole-wheat bread and pasta, dairy products, beans, and nuts.
Chronic kidney disease can lead to complications in many different areas of your body. These complications may be caused by a buildup of waste products in your blood, excess fluid in your body, or other factors.
Potential complications of CKD include:
Kidney damage is a well-known possible complication of severe COVID-19, even for people who previously had no known kidney problems. Over 30 percent of people hospitalized for COVID-19 experience kidney injury, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.
COVID-19 may damage the kidneys in a number of ways, including by causing low blood oxygen levels, leading to inflammation caused by your own immune system, or causing blood clots that may clog the tiny blood vessels in your kidneys. The virus that causes COVID-19 may also target your kidneys directly.
Many people who experience acute kidney injury due to COVID-19 that requires dialysis don’t survive their hospital stay. Among people in this situation who do survive and are discharged from the hospital, about one-third have not regained complete kidney function by this time, Johns Hopkins Medicine notes.
©2025 sitename.com All rights reserved