Healthy Kidneys
Healthy kidneys work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They clean your blood and keep water and minerals at the levels your body needs.
Healthy kidneys work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They clean your blood and keep water and minerals at the levels your body needs.
Most people have two kidneys, each about the size of a fist. The kidneys are located in the back of the body above the waist. The rib cage protects them.
Each kidney has a ureter—a tube that brings urine from the kidneys to the bladder.
Your body works best when water and chemicals in your blood stay in a tight range all the time. To keep your blood in balance, healthy kidneys do three main things:
Because kidneys keep water and electrolytes in balance, they help control blood pressure and keep your blood vessels and heart healthy. And, kidneys clean wastes out of your blood so your body works the way it should.
Healthy kidneys—along with your lungs—keep tight control on the level of acid wastes in your blood. They remove excess acid wastes from the blood. Having this balance thrown off can affect many organs.
The acid level of your blood is measured using pH values. A pH of 7.0 is neutral. In most people, blood pH is about 7.4. Your clinic may measure your blood pH.
Healthy kidneys check the number of red blood cells in your blood. If there are not enough, they send a hormone (called erythropoietin, or EPO) to your bone marrow to say: 'make more!'
Your red blood cells carry oxygen from your lungs to all the cells in your body.
Finally, healthy kidneys help your bones in 3 ways. They:
Kidneys play a big role in your overall health.
When the kidneys don’t work as they should, your whole body can feel the impact.
Why do kidneys fail? There are two kinds of kidney failure: acute and chronic.
Acute kidney injury is caused by sudden harm to the kidneys. Some common causes are a severe loss of blood, a severe drop in blood pressure, or a toxin, such as a medicine. Toxins that can cause acute kidney injury include:
If someone lives through acute kidney injury, their kidneys may get some function back—but they may not. Having function come back may take as long as a year. Some people who live through acute kidney injury are left with chronic kidney disease.
Chronic kidney disease gets worse over time. It can lead to kidney failure (the loss of kidney function). Damage happens so slowly that you will likely not feel a thing until it becomes severe. This is why some people have a hard time believing that they really have a kidney problem. If your kidneys fail, with treatment you can turn the hourglass over and start a new life. Even with kidney failure your life CAN still be good.
Chronic kidney disease, or CKD, has five stages:
A marker called eGFR is used to see how well your kidneys are working. eGFR may drop a little each year just due to normal aging. eGFR tells you what percent kidney function you have. Most healthy people have an eGFR of 90 or higher (90% function). The good news is, there’s a lot you can do to protect your kidneys once you know you have a problem.
What’s your eGFR? If you don’t know, ask your care team. Or, if you know your serum creatinine level, visit the eKidney Clinic site and you can find out with the eGFR Calculator.