Do You Know The Stages Of Chronic Kidney Disease?

My youngest son, father, and mother all have chronic kidney disease. My mother just left us a few months ago, but it was not kidney related. Over the years, I have been to many doctor appointments with all of them. I wanted to know what stages they had to endure, so I talked to the doctors and them about the stages.

CKD doesn't always present physical symptoms

I found out that kidney conditions grow silently and over the years. One day you just find out you have chronic kidney disease (CKD) damage. One doctor I spoke to was explaining what functions kidneys perform for our body and how they work. So, I had to learn how kidneys work and the different parts that help clean our bloodstream.

The next thing that was highlighted was a short abbreviation mentioned everywhere. I felt that it had a lot to do with understanding kidney health, and that was "eGFR". So, of course, one of my questions was what is eGFR?. She explained it to me.

We all know kidneys clean our bodies of waste materials. There is a way to find out if they are not doing that very efficiently. That is what eGFR tells us.

Our kidneys have an important function

This tells us that the kidneys are working to clean. As its score goes higher, kidney disease advances in its stages. For example, if it starts growing higher than 90 percent, kidney stage is set for stage 1. It then keeps on going to stage 5, where things are not so helpful and become out of hand at some point.

My doctor told me that as our body loses its ability to clean the bloodstream, waste starts accumulating, and pressure increases on our kidneys to work more. We slowly lose our kidney function if not treated in time. In the initial stages, it is possible to reverse the damage. But later on, it becomes chronic and can only be managed by different treatments like dialysis or transplant.

When I left the office that day, I was flooded with this information and how lightly we take our body organs' health. Our kidneys are doing all the hard work without us even knowing about it. I will be honest here: I never knew that kidneys do so much for our bodies and how sensitive they are and should be taken very seriously.

Learn about CKD

Since I have diabetes myself, I was already being cautioned about the importance of taking care of myself, not smoking, and cutting back on salt.

So, my suggestion is this: Next time your doctor says something that needs extra care, just do it. But more than that, read about it and ask questions about it to your healthcare professional. Unless we are fully aware of what we are facing, we will not be able to fight it.

My son knows that he can pick himself up no matter what. He does this with a smile on his face, a positive attitude, and the determination to keep trying and never give up. Stay healthy my friends and take extra care of those little beans in your body who have a lot on their plate.