What Tests Can Diagnose Hypertensive Nephropathy
Hypertensive Nephropathy is the damage to the kidney caused by chronic high blood pressure. If you have high blood pressure over five to ten years, and you find that there is bubble in your urine, you need to go to hospital to check whether you have suffered from Hypertensive Nephropathy.
Hypertensive Nephropathy is always seen in the patients who are over 40-50 years old and they have high blood pressure for 5 to 10 years or more. In the early stage, patients will go to urinate frequently at night. Then they will find that their urine has bubble. Finally, patients may find their urine is red, called blood urine. When patients find these symptoms, they have to go to hospital and do some tests.
What tests can help diagnose Hypertensive Nephropathy?
1. Urine microalbumin test: in the early stage of hypertensive nephropathy, high blood pressure causes the increase of capillary blood pressure in kidneys, leading to kidney damage. In this condition, urine microalbumin will increase.
2. Serum creatinine test: it is an important item of blood test. By measuring the level of creatinine in your blood, doctors can judge how well your kidneys are working. Creatinine is a chemical waste product which is produced by your muscle metabolism and the meat you eat. Kidney can filter out creatinine from your blood. When kidney is damaged, creatinine accumulates in your blood. The higher the creatinine level, the more severe your kidney damage.
3. Blood urea nitrogen (BUN) test: it is also a common blood test for kidney function. It is done to see how well your kidneys are working by the amount of urea nitrogen in the blood. It is similar to the creatinine. If the blood urea nitrogen is higher in your blood, it can indicate kidney damage.
4. Imaging test: in different stages of hypertensive nephropathy, kidney has different sizes. In the early stage of hypertensive nephropathy, the change of kidney’s size is not obvious. But in the late stage, kidney will shrink obviously.
Of course, there are some other teats for hypertensive nephropathy, like urine sediment red blood cell counting test, renal biopsy, etc. Different people need different tests for hypertensive nephropathy. If you go to hospital, your doctor will recommend what tests you need to do.
Tag: hypertensive nephropathy diagnosis
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