Is It My Back Or My Kidneys

Feeling Tired Or Sluggish During The Day

Everyone has a day when they feel tired maybe you didnt get enough sleep, or ate the wrong foods, or some other temporary factors are at play. But sometimes, fatigue is caused by lack of a hormone called erythropoietin, or EPO. The main function of EPO is to stimulate the production of red blood cells, and red blood cells carry energizing oxygen to cells throughout your body.

Stressed kidneys do not produce enough EPO, thereby reducing the number of red blood cells and making you feel weak and tired out.

What Is A Kidney Problem

The kidneys form part of the urinary system, one of the bodyâs major filtration systems. Most people have two kidneys, situated in the upper abdominal area towards the muscles of the back and the edge of the ribs. The kidneys form part of the urinary system along with the two ureters, the bladder and urethra. Kidney problems affect the kidneys, but because the system works together, the effects of a kidney problem are sometimes felt throughout the system.

The kidneys themselves clean the blood by filtering it in the nephrons, which are made up of a renal tubule and a renal corpuscle. The corpuscle is made up of a glomerulus enclosed by the Bowmanâs capsule. To filter the blood, it is passed through the glomeruli at higher pressure than the bodyâs usual blood pressure. Filtered waste products collect inside the Bowmanâs capsule, while filtered, clean blood is passed back out of the glomeruli into the circulatory system. The tubule collects the waste products from the Bowmanâs capsule while also working on further exchanging certain substances and also reabsorbing water and certain minerals so they donât go to waste. The final resulting liquid is then passed into the ureters as urine. Urine collects in the bladder, which stores it until it is released by the urethra.

What Is The Best Treatment For Kidney Pain Or Back Pain

When either your kidneys or your back hurt, you could either experience mild discomfort or a crippling pain. Since the actual problem might not be clear yet, consulting with a physician is imperative to determine the cause before they can administer treatment.

Issues with the kidney could either be a minor problem or a big one. If youre battling a kidney infection, your doctor would most likely prescribe antibiotics for you. A tiny kidney stone will require no treatment at all and pass naturally. In some cases, you many need a short hospital visit so they can get the stones out of your system smoothly. Drinking plenty of water can help with this problem. A larger kidney stone, on the other hand, would require surgery.

As for the back, various causes means many different cures are available. For non-serious back problems, you only need some rest, muscle relaxants, and a heating pad to relieve the pain. If the pain lasts for over two weeks, it may indicate a more severe problem that could require intensive care, physical rehabilitation, or minor surgery.

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Pregnancy And Kidney Pain

Pregnancy can sometimes cause kidney pain. Being pregnant puts you at a greater risk of developing a urinary tract infection or blood clots all which can cause a sensation of pain in your middle back.

Dr. Melissa Conrad Stöppler on MedicineNet, says that during pregnancy the uterus becomes enlarged and the urine flows slower. You could even experience vesicoureteral reflux where urine flows back up the urinary tract. This means that it is easier for bacteria to enter the urinary tract and spread the infection to the kidneys.14

Questions To Ask Your Doctor About Adpkd

• How will this disease make me feel?
• Do I need any more tests?
• Do I need to see a specialist?
• What are my treatment options?
• Do the treatments have side effects?
• What do you expect for my case?
• What can I do to keep my kidneys working?
• If I have children, will they get the disease?
• Do my children need to get a genetic test?

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Back Pain Or Kidney Infection

Another type of pain is caused by a kidney infection. How does it feel? You guessed it: A dull throb that may feel like mid- or upper back pain.

A kidney infection is usually caused by bacteria. These real-life risk factors greatly increase your chances of developing one. For example: a kidney stone whether or not it obstructs the ureter, nerve or spinal damage that impairs bladder emptying or a lower urinary tract infection called cystitis. But older people, 70s on up, sometimes develop kidney infections without any other predisposing factor.

The signs and symptoms linked to this include back, side and/or groin pain as well as one or the combination of factors listed:

• Fever
• Burning sensation when you urinate
• Sense of urgencyyou really gotta go
• Vomiting
• Nausea

As with a kidney stone, a kidney infection can turn into an emergency.

Kidney stone and infection are the most common forms of kidney pain, Dr. Charney says, but points out that rare genetic diseases such as polycystic kidney disease and Fabry disease can cause kidney pain that can be mistaken for back pain.

Signs Of Kidney Disease

You’re more tired, have less energy or are having trouble concentrating. A severe decrease in kidney function can lead to a buildup of toxins and impurities in the blood. This can cause people to feel tired, weak and can make it hard to concentrate. Another complication of kidney disease is anemia, which can cause weakness and fatigue.

You’re having trouble sleeping. When the kidneys aren’t filtering properly, toxins stay in the blood rather than leaving the body through the urine. This can make it difficult to sleep. There is also a link between obesity and chronic kidney disease, and sleep apnea is more common in those with chronic kidney disease, compared with the general population.

You have dry and itchy skin. Healthy kidneys do many important jobs. They remove wastes and extra fluid from your body, help make red blood cells, help keep bones strong and work to maintain the right amount of minerals in your blood.Dry and itchy skin can be a sign of the mineral and bone disease that often accompanies advanced kidney disease, when the kidneys are no longer able to keep the right balance of minerals and nutrients in your blood.

You feel the need to urinate more often. If you feel the need to urinate more often, especially at night, this can be a sign of kidney disease. When the kidneys filters are damaged, it can cause an increase in the urge to urinate. Sometimes this can also be a sign of a urinary infection or enlarged prostate in men.

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How To Distinguish Back Pain From Kidney Pain

As back pain is a common experience for many people, its easy to think that its just another ordinary ache that will go away on its own. However, your kidneys may be the organs that are actually causing you pain. It can be tricky to distinguish what exactly is causing your discomfort because of how close the pain areas are. Heres a quick guide to help you figure out if youre experiencing kidney pain or back pain:

What Happens If You Have Kidney Disease

Kidney disease can be treated. The sooner you know you have kidney disease, the sooner you can get treatment to help delay or prevent kidney failure. Treating kidney disease may also help prevent heart disease.

Treatment goals are to:

• If you smoke, take steps to quit.
• Take medicines the way your provider tells you to.

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Kidney Location In Body

In Conclusion

Let us talk about the kidney location in the body. As a qualified medical doctor, and based of my knowledge of the human anatomy, I am aware that the kidneys are located in the posterior abdominal wall. By the way, let me clarify that the human abdomen extends from beneath your sternum to just above your pelvis.

Your kidneys are located just below the rib cage, beneath your liver in the back of your abdomen.

For the purpose of deeper understanding, the abdomen can further be divided into the front and back wallsotherwise called the anterior and posterior abdominal walls respectively.

Sometimes, if you have an underlying kidney diseases which cause pain and inflammation, you may begin to experience low back or flank pain. Flank pain could be a symptom of a urinary tract or kidney infection as the case may be. While you experience flank pain during a Urinary Tract Infection, doctors will elicit renal angle tenderness.

Unlike other causes of back pain, kidney pain often will not get better as you move, or even if you massage the area.

Renal stones otherwise called nephrolithiasis is also another common cause of flank pain which is felt in the middle of the back. You should be careful with acute sharp pain in your middle back and it is an important symptom that should make you book an appointment with your doctor.

How Do Kidney Stones Form

Kidney stones form when calcium salts precipitate out and form tiny stone-like substances which may block the lumen of your kidney or the other components of the urinary tract. Pain resulting from kidney stone can be so excruciating.

Since the mineral stone formed in kidney stone disease can be mobile, a patient may experience on and off pain which can also radiate to the groin or lower abdomen. Other symptoms of kidney stone a patient may experience include increased frequency of urination, passage of cloudy urine and severe pains during urination.

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The Water Hydration Technique

You know how most of us generally go for long periods without water, become thirsty and scull the next available glass in about 30 seconds? Have you ever thought what this does to your body? No? I dont blame you.

The actual fact of the matter is that every time you a drink a glass of water in a hurry, you are placing pressure on kidney function. How? Well, seeing as one of the functions of the kidneys is to keep the fluid levels in the blood stream balanced, by drinking a full glass of water at once you are essentially dumping a large amount of water into the blood stream, which the kidneys now need to balance out . By drinking slowly, a mouthful at a time, you reduce the pressure on the kidneys and increase hydration. Sound too simple to do any good? Good. Now try it.

How Is Kidney Failure Treated

Kidney failure treatment is determined by the cause and extent of the problem. Treating your chronic medical condition can delay the progression of kidney disease. If your kidneys start losing their function gradually, your doctor may use one or more methods to track your health. By watching you closely, your doctor can help you maintain your kidneys function as long as possible.

Your doctor may gauge your kidney function with:

• Routine blood tests
• Blood pressure checks
• Medication

Because the kidneys serve such an important purpose, people in kidney failure need treatment to keep them alive. The main treatments for kidney failure are:

• Dialysis: This treatment helps the body filter the blood .
• In hemodialysis, a machine regularly cleans your blood for you. People often receive this kidney failure treatment at a hospital or dialysis clinic, 3 or 4 days each week.
• Peritoneal dialysis cleans the blood in a slightly different way using a dialysis solution and a catheter. Sometimes, people can do their treatment at home.

Kidney transplant: In kidney transplant surgery, doctors place a healthy kidney in your body to take over the job of your damaged organs. This healthy kidney, called a donor organ, may come from a deceased donor or a living donor, who may be a friend or family member. People can live well with one healthy kidney.

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Bottom Line: Dont Hesitate To See Your Doctor If You Think Its Kidney Pain

Unlike back pain, you dont want to have a wait and see approach with your kidneys. Infections can get worse and lead to serious tissue damage, while odd growths and stones can impair kidney function. The earlier your doc can prescribe you a care plan, the better they can nip your conditionand your puzzling back painin the bud.

Signs Of Acute Kidney Injury

Acute kidney injury is a rapid or abrupt decline in kidney function and is considered a medical emergency. It occurs when there is direct injury to one or both kidneys, a blockage in the ureter or another condition causing insufficient blood flow to the kidneys.

In adults, kidney failure can be caused by:

• Low blood pressure that occurs very suddenly and/or is severely low
• Bleeding

• Tenderness or pain in the area of the the lower ribs

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Urinary Or Renal Infection

A urinary infection can evolve to a renal infection or kidney stones, which need to be treated with bladder probes or several other treatments that can lead t renal infection. Both cases share similar symptoms:

• Pain in the groin, side or lumbar area. In the case of urinary tract infections, this pain is present when the infection has reached the kidneys.
• Frequent urination with scarce urination.
• Pain and burning sensation when urinating.
• Dark colored urine with a strong smell or, in some cases, blood.
• Fever, nausea and vomit.

Where Are Your Kidneys Located

Where are your kidneys located? The kidneys are those bean-shaped organs located in the posterior wall, plastered against the muscles in your back. Essentially, the kidneys perform the role of a fuel pump filter in a car by filtering off waste products from your blood in order to produce urine.

Now that you know the answer to the question where are your kidneys located, it is also important to know exactly what symptoms and sign in the kidney location that may connote infection.

In this article, we will not only talk about where your kidneys are located, but also go as far as discussing the possible causes and treatment of kidney pain and much more. After all, health they say is wealth.

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Why Wait Until Your Kidneys Are Diseased

While the study was conducted on people with kidney disease, we could safely extrapolate the recommendations to those who want to avoid kidney disease and achieve optimal kidney function now, especially as we age.

In fact, additional research points to the actuality of physiological changes in the kidneys as we age. The research notes that a progressive reduction of the glomerular filtration rate and renal blood flow are observed in conjunction with aging. The reason for these phenomena is a decrease in the plasma flow in the glomerulus, a bundle of capillaries that partially form the renal corpuscle.2

In addition, the aging kidneys experience other structural changes, such as a loss of renal mass, and decreased responsiveness to stimuli that constrict or dilate blood vessels. The study concludes with a notable summation:

age-related changes in cardiovascular hemodynamics, such as reduced cardiac output and systemic hypertension, are likely to play a role in reducing renal perfusion and filtration. Finally, it is hypothesized that increases in cellular oxidative stress that accompany aging result in endothelial cell dysfunction and changes in vasoactive mediators resulting in increased atherosclerosis, hypertension and glomerulosclerosis.2

Four Key Concepts And Talking Points

1. Talk to patients about their kidneys, CKD, and their risk.

What is CKD? CKD means the kidneys are damaged and may no longer filter blood well. This damage happens over many years. As more damage occurs, the kidneys are unable to keep the body healthy – then dialysis or a kidney transplant may be needed to maintain health.

How can I lower my risk for CKD? The steps you take to manage your diabetes and high blood pressure also help protect your kidneys. Choosing healthy foods, quitting smoking, and being more physically active are all important steps.

2. Communicate the importance of testing and how CKD is diagnosed.

What are the symptoms of CKD? Most people with CKD have no symptoms until their kidneys are about to fail. The only way to know if you have kidney disease is to get tested. The sooner kidney disease is found, the sooner you can take steps to begin treatment and keep your kidneys healthier longer.

How do you check for CKD? A blood test and a urine test are used to find kidney disease. Because you are at risk, you should get these tests regularly:

• GFR – A blood test measures how much blood your kidneys filter each minute, which is known as your glomerular filtration rate .
• Urine Albumin – A urine test checks for albumin in your urine. Albumin is a protein that can pass into the urine when the filters in the kidneys are damaged.

3. Explain the progressive nature of CKD and the basics of treatment.

4. Begin to speak about dialysis and transplantation.

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These Are Not Myths About Kidney Disease:

• Diabetes, hypertension and age 60 or greater are the most common reasons for low kidney function.
• Heart disease, family history of chronic kidney disease and being of an ethnic and/or racial minority group are important predictors of risk.
• CKD is more common among women than men.
• More than 35 percent of people aged 20 years or older with diabetes have CKD.
• More than 20 percent of people aged 20 years or older with hypertension have CKD.
• Chronic kidney disease is one of the worlds most important public health problems.
• Chronic kidney disease can often be prevented.

COVID-19 patients can become kidney patients.

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