What Is An End Stage Renal Disease?

An End Stage Renal Disease is an illness wherein the kidneys have loss its ability fo perform its normal function. It can no longer filter the blood that pass through the kidneys and excrete the toxins through the urine out of the body.

My dad had an end stage renal disease as a complication of his hypertension. Other conditions that may lead to chronic renal failure are:

Diabetic Nephropathy - diabetes can cause permanent damage to the kidney

Lupus - a chronic autoimmune disease

A prolonged urinary tract obstruction

Some of the symptoms of a chronic renal failure:

1. Poor Appetite *

2. Vomiting

3. Increase in Urine Output or no urine output

4. Shortness of Breath*

5. Recurrent Urinary Tract Infection*

6. Edema or Tissue Swelling *

7. Headache

8. Muscle Pain

9. Fatigue *

10. Irritability*

11. Bad Breath*

12. Urinary Incontinence

13. Insomnia

Those with asterisks are some of the sypmtoms that my dad exhibited when he was diagnosed with an endstage renal disease.

Some of the Laboratory Tests requested for him are:

1. Blood Tests - which includes Complete Blood Count, Electrolytes, Creatinine, Urea

2. Nuclear Glomerulus Filtration Rate

3. Urinalysis
4. Renal or Kidney Ultrasound

An End Stage Renal Disease can be treated only with a kidney transplantation while dialysis is the procedure done to rid the blood of toxins which under normal circumstances are eliminated by the kidneys.

How He Was Diagnosed with an End Stage Renal Disease

In November 2006, my family met up with my aunt's family to visit our dead loved ones for the All Saints' Day.

My aunt, a physician, noted that my father was losing a lot of weight. She told my father to go to her clinic so she could do some work-up with my father to determine what was the reason behind his rapid weight loss.

Maybe it was because I often see my father that I wasn't able to note the physical changes happening in him. I asked him if he feels sick, he just told me that he doesn't have appetite for food, he feels tired and he find it difficult to breath at a times.

There were times in the past months that he would have swollen feet but we dismissed it thinking that it was his rheumatism.

The results of the lab test show that he has an elevated creatinine, high level of blood urea nitrogen, and his red blood cell count is below normal.

My aunt referred my dad to a nephrologist- a specialist on kidney disorder. The nephrologist gave my dad medications for his hypertension which was just diagnosed , an erythropoietin injection to normalize his blood count and other medicines. He was then ordered to return to the clinic after a week with the results of a new set of laboratory exams ordered for my dad.

On his next visit to his doctor, the nephrologist noted that there where no change in the laboratory results and that the creatinine level got more elevated. He then ordered a nuclear glomerulus filtration rate test or a nuclear gfr for my father.

We had his nuclear gfr taken at the National Kidney Institute and Transplant Institute.

My dad called me in the office and informed that according to the test, only 8 percent of his kidneys were functioning and that he needed to have a dialysis the soonest time possible because his creatinine level is now at seven when the normal level should be below 1.3.

His kidneys were damaged as a complication of his hypertension. Since only 8 percent of his kidneys were functioning and that the condition is irreversible; he is now suffering from an end stage renal disease.