Kidneys disorders are harmful, yet treatable. Common amongst 8-10% of adults, kidney diseases can largely affect your life. Since early chronic disorders of kidney show no symptoms, it becomes essential for us to be aware of them and prevent ourselves from getting affected. This is why we celebrate World Kidney Day on every second Thursday of March month. The theme for the year 2020 is “Kidney Health for Everyone Everywhere – from Prevention to Detection and Equitable Access to Care”. The essential part of this year’s theme is “from Prevention to Detection” according to us. Here’s why?
- Prevention of kidney diseases will help your kidneys to smoothly perform required functions in the body and stay healthy.
- Early detection of kidney diseases can help you treat yourself before it worsens or takes away your life.
However, chronic kidney diseases hardly go away despite the availability of treatments. Therefore, prevention is the most effective measure to combat chronic kidney diseases. To do so, the first and foremost thing is to understand why do kidney damage occurs in the first place. Kidney diseases like acute infections, chronic infections and kidney stones occur due to excessive use of drugs, poisons, uncontrolled diabetes & high blood pressure, prolonged obstruction of the urinary tract and repeated infections. These Chronic Kidney Diseases gradually hampers kidney functions. The process is so gradual that the patients do not experience symptoms or very few symptoms until the kidney function is significantly impaired. Now that we know any damage beyond repair to our kidneys leads only to lifelong dialysis or kidney transplant, we must take good care of it well in advance.
Here’s how to take care of your Kidneys
- Stay hydrated: Drink an adequate quantity of water throughout the day especially during the summer season. Make sure you do not hold your urine for a long time.
- Keep control over your diabetes and high blood pressure: If you have diabetes or high blood pressure, modify your lifestyle, manage stress and regularly take medicines prescribed by your doctor to ensure the levels are in control for a healthy life.
- Things to avoid: You must follow safety regulations to avoid exposure to chemicals at your workplace. Besides that, you must avoid smoking, alcohol intake or any other addictive drug as well as prolonged use of painkillers to keep your kidneys healthy.
- Active lifestyle & Balanced Diet: Have an active lifestyle with a regular exercise routine, well-balanced nutritious diet to maintain optimum weight and sound sleep of 6-8 hours. Also, keep yourself away from packaged food and too much use of salt. Your diet must contain carbohydrates, proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals and fibres.
- Preventive Health Checkups: Besides regular checkups, you must also undergo kidney function tests especially when you have diabetes, blood pressure, coronary heart disease or past/family history of kidney diseases.
- Self-medication or medication without consultation: You must never take any medicine without the consultation of your doctor as many lose their lives due to it. Also, you must not fall prey to the misleading advertisement of so-called natural or herbal products as they may contain substances harmful for your kidneys. So, always consult your doctor before taking any kind of medicine.
All of the above steps can help you take good care of your kidneys. And if you fall prey to any of these chronic kidney diseases, then please ensure to undergo a treatment at the earliest. In case of any emergencies due to kidney disorder or transfer of a patient with kidney disease, you can always call Ziqitza Healthcare for emergency ambulance service.
Author: Dr. Santosh Datar (Medical Director Ziqitza Healthcare Ltd)