What is Diabetic Nephropathy?
Diabetic Nephropathy affects people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes, and it is a significant cause of chronic kidney disease and end stage renal failure globally. Therefore, importance should be attached if you have years of diabetes. But do not worry too much, with early treatment, you can slow or even stop the progression of the disease.
How does diabetes cause Diabetic Nephropathy?
Diabetes means your blood sugar level is high. To keep the blood sugar level down, your kidneys have to work hard to remove them out of body. Long-term overwork of kidneys can cause the glomeruli to thicken and scar, which make them less able to filter waste and remove fluid from the body. And this causes them to leak albumin into urine, contributing to Diabetic Nephropathy. If attention is not paid in the early stage, your kidney function will gradually decline with time going.
Symptoms of Diabetic Nephropathy
In the early stage of Diabetic Nephropathy, there are hardly noticeable symptoms. But when you do urine test, you may find microalbuminuria. Therefore, it is important to have regular urine tests to find kidney damage early. With the progression of the disease, you may experience some of the symptoms below.
-Swelling in feet and legs
-Proteinuria
-Worsening blood pressure control
-High blood cholesterol level
-Anemia
-Fatigue or weakness
-Increased urination
-Poor appetite
-Nausea and vomiting
-Skin itching
-Headache
-Less need for insulin or diabetes medicine
How to treat Diabetic Nephropathy well?
Diabetic Nephropathy is incurable, but its progression to ESRD can be delayed or stopped with treatments.
-Conventional treatment
It is to take various medications under the direction of your doctor, such as medications to keep your blood sugar levels under control, ACEI or ARBs or other blood pressure medications to keep your blood pressure levels down, diuretics to relieve swelling, steroids or immunosuppressants to reduce massive proteinuria, etc. When your disease develops to ESRD, dialysis or kidney transplant should be done to maintain your life.
-Treatment in our hospital
In our hospital, we do not only help you control symptoms and complications, but also repair kidney damage and promote kidney function. The commonly used treatment is systemic Chinese medicine, which can set up a good blood environment for kidney self-healing and other medication application. The detailed information can be acquired from online doctor.
Diet and other lifestyle changes for Diabetic Nephropathy
-Watch protein intake. Too much protein intake can put extra stress on your kidneys, so you had better follow a low quantity but high quality protein diet, such as egg white, lean meat, milk, fish, poultry without skin, etc.
-Limit salt intake. It helps you keep high blood pressure from getting worse.
-Consuming healthy fats, whereas consumption of oils and saturated fatty acids should be avoided.
-Take part in gentle exercises regularly. This can help you control your blood pressure, blood sugar level and blood cholesterol level well.
-Do not smoke or drink alcohol.
What is the outlook for Diabetic Nephropathy?
Diabetic Nephropathy is the leading cause of kidney failure. But the condition slowly damages your kidneys over many years. For almost all patients with early stage, their kidneys do not present obvious damage after 20-30 years. However, once it develops to microalbuminuria stage, it is very likely for the disease to progress further to reflect typical clinical manifestations of Diabetic Nephropathy. Therefore, to have a good prognosis, you should try your best to halt the disease to stage 3. If your disease has developed to advanced stage, do not worry too much. Correct treatment can help you keep dialysis and kidney transplant away.
