How to Diagnose Kidney Shrinkage
Kidney shrinkage has a close link with kidney failure or uremia, so the early diagnosis can make patients take treatment earlier. Well then, how to diagnose kidney shrinkage?
First of all, the clinical manifestations and some tests can help make the diagnosis of kidney shrinkage.
If you have the following symptoms, you should concern kidney shrinkage.
1. Patients with renal atrophy are more likely to have nausea, vomiting, fatigue, renal anemia, and so on. If progressing continuously, it may aggravate into uremia.
2. Swelling in legs, feet or eyelids is one typical sign of kidney problem as well as kidney shrinkage. Accordingly, patients may have skin itching and back pain that makes patients unable to sit for long time.
3. As extra fluid and sodium builds up in the body, blood pressure increases easily. In some cases, patients' weight loses gradually.
How to determine whether kidneys shrink?
Normally, left kidney is 11~13.5 cm in length and right kidney is 10.8~13 cm. Kidneys are 5~6 cm in width and 3~4 cm in thickness. Age, race, gender, body size, and so on also affect the kidney size. For the elderly, their kidneys will become small. It is thought to have kidney shrinkage when patients' kidneys have shrunk to half of normal size or more severe. In order to measure patients' kidney size, people are suggested to do ultrasound B.
To detect the severity of patients' kidney damage, they should do blood test and urine test. If creatinine level and urea level in the blood is higher than the normal, it indicates at least 50% of kidney function has been lost. In this condition, patients should take some treatments to save their kidneys immediately. Otherwise, they may suffer from kidney failure or uremia easily in the near future. If you need any help, we are glad to provide.
Tag: CKD CKD Diagnosis
