Kidneys are one of the most important organs of our body, which acts as a waste management system by eliminating the unrequired fluid from our body. It maintains a harmony in the chemicals present in our blood vessels. You might experience a terrible Kidney pain sometimes. Let us have a look what is causing the kidney pain?
Kidneys are located under the ribcage and just above the abdominal area. If you are experiencing pain or inflammation in your kidney, you should consult your doctor right away. As this creates a block in smooth functioning of the other organs as well. Now what causes these types of kidney pains? There can be a number of reasons for kidney pains.
- Kidney infection
- Kidney stones
- Polycystic kidney disease
- Kidney cancer
Kidneys have small tubes known as ureters, which help the urine to get drained from the bladder. The fluid from bladder gets removed via the urethra. Problems in any interconnected areas can cause the kidney pain.
Causes of Kidney infection:-
Kidney infection is known in the medical world as Pyelonephritis. This condition is caused when an infection in the urinary tract travels up and reaches urethra. This is a very critical disease, it can prove to be life threatening. Pyelonephritis can lead to accumulation of pus around the areas of the kidney; this can result in blockage of the entire urinary system and ultimately death. Pyelonephritis occurs when viruses like Escherichia Coli travels up the UTI or urinary tract system.
Symptoms of Kidney infection:-
Kidney infection is a dangerous disease. The symptoms of a kidney infection are as follows:-
- Very high fever
- Sudden nausea or fatigue
- Abnormal vomiting
- Sudden back pain
- Blood in urine
- Foamy or cloudy urine
- Bad smelling urine
Treatments for Kidney infection:-
Pyelonephritis takes a minimum of 7 days to heal. The best way to cure this disease is by consulting a doctor. Your doctor will know which antibiotic to use for the faster healing therapy. You must remember that everything cannot be treated at home, you should leave few things to the expert. In most of these cases, it is seen that the patient doesn’t have to get admitted to the hospital. But if the disease is critical and the doctor needs to check whether the medicine is reaching the kidney or not, you might have to stay under observation for few days.
Causes of kidney stones:-
Kidney stones are the solid mineral deposits formed inside the kidneys. These types of deposits are also known as renal calculus. Kidney stones can be dangerous; it can block the flow of urine completely. Since the fluid will not be able to flow freely, it will create extra pressure to come out, which in turn will result in kidney pain. People having kidney stones, can suffer from chronic kidney disease.
Symptoms of Kidney stones:-
You might not be able to understand that you are having a stone in your kidney, till the time it passes through the ureter. The symptoms related to kidney stones are as follows:-
- Experiencing tremendous pain below the rib cage
- Pain in abdomen and groin
- Experiencing pain wile urinating
- Bad smelling urine
- Putting too much pressure to release urine
- Sudden vomiting
- Urinating quite often
- Sudden fever and experiencing chills without reason
- Urinating in a small amount
Treatments of Kidney stones:-
Treatment related to kidney stones depends on the actual size of the stones formed inside the kidneys. If the size of the stone is small in can be treated in the following ways;-
Frequently drinking water –
It is recommended to drink as much fluid as possible. You need to consume at least 1.9l of fluid every day. It will help in flushing out the urine quickly. However, before trying to treat kidney stones at home, consult your doctor, he/she is the best person to tell you how much liquid to consume. Your doctor will be able to tell you this treatment will even work for you or not. He/she will first check the condition of the stone, then only decide what is best for you.
Medicine –
Small kidney stones don’t take much time to heal. Passing stones might give you mild pain. But these can be treated with pain relievers like acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Since kidney stone can be dangerous, it is better to take the advice of a doctor first before taking any medicine. Before consuming any medicine you need to know whether it will suit you or not.
Therapies –
Your physician can suggest you to go for alpha blocker.. This therapy helps in relaxing the ureter muscles, which in turn helps the kidney stone to pass without any pain.
Large kidney stones can be a reason to worry. The treatment related to large kidney stones can takes days. Large kidney stones can be treated in the following ways:-
- Using extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy
Doctors use the sound wave to break the kidney stones, this again depends on the size and the location of the stone. Extracorporeal shock wave lithotripsy or ESWL is used to create shock waves or strong vibrations to break the kidney stones. This treatment lasts between 45 minutes to one hour. While going through this treatment, the patient can experience a little pain. Doctors can even use light anesthesia so that you don’t feel anything. Tis process can be a bit difficult or the patient, as ESWL can result in blood in the urine or even bleeding around the adjacent organs of the Kidney or even around the kidney. The passing stones through the urine can be another reason for discomfort for the patient.
Percutaneous nephrolithotomy is an extremely renowned process through which large sized kidney stones are being removed. This process involves insertion of instruments and a small telescope in the kidney through the slit of your back. This surgery can be extremely painful, therefore you will receive anesthesia while the doctors continue with their work. However, this surgery is only recommended if the doctors don’t succeed by using ESWL. After this surgery you will have to stay back in the hospital for about 2 days.
- Using ureteroscope to remove large stones
The doctor can take the help of ureteroscope to locate and detect the size of the kidney stone. Ureteroscope is a thin tube which has a camera. This is inserted through the urethra and the bladder. Once the doctor successfully locates the stone, special tools are used to break the stone into small pieces, so that it can pass through urine easily. Once it is done, the doctors will heal the swelling. This process can be painful so doctors will use anesthesia while performing this surgery.
Causes of Polycystic kidney disease:-
Polycystic kidney disease occurs when multiple cysts grow in the kidney. This creates pain in the affected organs. The cyst can vary in size. A large number of cyst can even damage the kidney.
Symptoms of the Polycystic kidney:-
- Your blood pressure can go up high
- You might experience severe side and back pain
- Splitting headache or an abnormal headache
- A sudden heaviness in the abdomen
- Abdomen might grow due to kidney enlargement
- Blood in urine
- Sudden failure of kidney
- Kidney infection
Treatments for the Polycystic kidney:-
The polycystic kidney treatment is done to avoid complication. The doctors can take the help of antibiotics to treat the infection. To cure this disease the treatment will continue, however, it will take 3 to 4 days to heal the serious condition.
In case the disease is critical, the doctor will take the help of surgery to drain the cyst. This will help to relieve the pain and discomfort. The surgery might take one hour. During this time, you will be under light anesthesia.
Kidney cancer and its symptoms:-
Kidney cancer or renal cancer occurs when the cells in kidney become cancerous and ultimately forms tumors. It is expected that you will face unlikely things which might bother you a lot. The symptoms of kidney cancer are as follows:-
- Continuous back pain
- Blood sample in urine
- Abdominal swelling and pain
- Fatigue without any reason
- Fevers coming back every now and then
- Sudden weight loss
- Constipation
- Changing of the color of skin
- Unable to tolerate cold
- Blurry vision or problems related to vision
- Hair growth at an alarming rate in women
Treatment of kidney cancer:-
Treatment of kidney cancer depends on different factors. To an extent it depends on the general health condition of the patient. The treatment also depends on the stage of cancer.
Surgery is the most common treatment for curing kidney cancer. A person can function well with just one kidney, so if the doctor finds the other kidney to be damaged he/she can even opt for removing the same.
If the tumor in the kidney is found to be smaller than 4 inches, the doctor will remove a part of the kidney. This treatment will be painful. But if cancer has spread and reached outside the kidney areas, only surgery won’t help. It will ease the pain.
Risk factors for Kidney pain:-
There are ample of factors which can increase the risk of kidney infection.
Kidney problems for female –
Compared to male, females are having much shorter urethra. This short passage makes it easier for the bacteria to travel upward and into the bladder. The anus, vagina and the urethra are located very closely. The bacteria can travel in a very short time. Once the bacteria or the virus reaches the bladder, it can spread to kidney very easily. Therefore, the risk of kidney infection and pain in women are much higher than men.
UTI blockage –
Urinary blockage can slow down the flow of urine creating a major problem in the whole internal system. Urinary tract infection can lead to kidney stones as well as some major health related problems.
Low immune system –
Kidney infection is very common in patient with diabetes and HIV. Patient with such condition needs to be very carefully. Any wrong step can lead to kidney infection and thereafter kidney damage.
Damaged nerves –
Any nerve damage around the bladder can create a blockage. You won’t know when this blockage will turn into a kidney infection. Therefore, if you experience any pain in the abdominal area, consult a doctor immediately.
Urine flow in the wrong direction –
A small amount of urine may flow back to ureters and kidneys. People experiencing such thing are at a much higher risk of getting affected by a kidney infection.
Complications related to kidney pain:-
It is recommended to consult a doctor as soon as you experience any kidney pain. Untreated kidney pain can result in severe damage, which you won’t understand immediately but slowly you will.
Scarring –
Kidney scarring can result in different types of kidney diseases and even kidney failure. It can also result in high blood pressure.
Poisoning of blood –
Kidney removes the waste from the blood and it distributes the flow of blood evenly in the entire body. If the kidney infection is left untreated for a long time, the virus can travel to the blood causing blood poisoning. This situation can be life threatening. This blood poisoning is also known as septicemia
Complications during pregnancy –
It is a well-known fact that pregnant women remain at a high risk of getting affected by kidney infections. This might result in the delivery of a very low weight child.
Kidney pain can cause bigger harm than you can imagine. If you are facing slight pain in the abdominal area, don’t try to take medicine by yourself or don’t try to cure it all by yourself. It is not a very good idea to ignore such delicate thing. You must consult a doctor as soon as you face this type of situation.
Kidneys are very precious. You need to be very careful as the virus can attack you anytime. You need to urinate to eliminate the waste materials in the body, you need to drink a lot of fluid, you need to wash your genital area carefully, you even need to urinate after intercourse. Diseases don’t knock the door before hitting us. It is always better to be a bit careful and consult a doctor whenever needed.