Essay On Kidney Failure
Kidney Failure
Human health has been misdiagnosed and misunderstood for centuries "until the evolution of the medical field in the late 1800s which led to a rise in the average life expectancy from thirty-six to a whopping seventy-eight"1. Then specialists started to identify the structure and the function of each organ. That’s when they found how some organs are important that the human body cannot work properly without them, such as heart, kidneys and lungs. As well as others that can be cut off or removed and it will not need special long term treatment ,nor will it make a huge difference, for example, cutting off half the stomach or removing the spleen entirely. The kidney is one of those essential organs due to how fundamental it is. To fully understand kidney failure, a summary about the organ is obligatory as well as its complete definition and diagnosis.
The kidneys are a pair of organs that are located right and left in the back of the abdomen. Each one of them is about four to five inches long, almost as the size of a fist. They filter all the blood by removing the wastes and toxins every thirty minutes. As "The rate of filtration is approximately 125 ml/min or 45 gallons (180 liters) …show more content…
each day. Considering that a human has 7 to 8 liters of blood in his body, this means that the entire blood volume gets filtered approximately 20 to 25 times each day!"5. Also kidneys control the body's fluid balance, release a hormone that regulates blood pressure and keep the minerals in the blood in their normal rates.
Renal failure (kidney failure) is a condition that describes when the kidneys have a malfunction and fail to filter the blood, control body's fluid levels and regulate. It stimulated by numerous causes which some of them can be treated while others cannot, such as toxins, trauma, autoimmune disease and infection. Showing signs like hypertension, edema (watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body), uremia (a raised level of wastes in the blood). In addition, "It's possible to lose as much as 90% of kidney function without experiencing any symptoms or problems"4 , and that shows how problematic and unpredictable kidney failure can be. Every day twelve people die waiting for a kidney according to National Kidney Foundation.
There are two types of kidney failure which are completely different.
The first type is called acute kidney failure that cause malfunction occurring suddenly and develop rapidly over a few hours or days. Although acute is considered fatal, it can be cured and normal health can be regained. The signs are fluid retention (swelling appears in ankle, legs or feet), drowsiness, shortness of breath, fatigue, confusion, chest pain and nausea. On the other hand, chronic kidney failure happens when kidney function is lost gradually over long time. In the early stages, normal checkups rarely detect it due to its non specified symptoms caused by other illnesses and because the kidneys are adjustable and able to offset for the lost function, until irrecoverable damage has
occurred.
To conclude, the two types of renal failure are extremely lethal. Additionally, if it didn’t take lives, it will cause a very painful life style as one of them is not curable while the other is reversible. Medicine is still in a revolutionary state that keep impressing the world with it discoveries like some scientists making a kidney from stem cells that was successfully tested on pigs and that is one step closer to being able to grow human replacement kidneys. This new discovery gives hope for kidney failure patients.
Human health has been misdiagnosed and misunderstood for centuries "until the evolution of the medical field in the late 1800s which led to a rise in the average life expectancy from thirty-six to a whopping seventy-eight"1. Then specialists started to identify the structure and the function of each organ. That’s when they found how some organs are important that the human body cannot work properly without them, such as heart, kidneys and lungs. As well as others that can be cut off or removed and it will not need special long term treatment ,nor will it make a huge difference, for example, cutting off half the stomach or removing the spleen entirely. The kidney is one of those essential organs due to how fundamental it is. To fully understand kidney failure, a summary about the organ is obligatory as well as its complete definition and diagnosis.
The kidneys are a pair of organs that are located right and left in the back of the abdomen. Each one of them is about four to five inches long, almost as the size of a fist. They filter all the blood by removing the wastes and toxins every thirty minutes. As "The rate of filtration is approximately 125 ml/min or 45 gallons (180 liters) …show more content…
each day. Considering that a human has 7 to 8 liters of blood in his body, this means that the entire blood volume gets filtered approximately 20 to 25 times each day!"5. Also kidneys control the body's fluid balance, release a hormone that regulates blood pressure and keep the minerals in the blood in their normal rates.
Renal failure (kidney failure) is a condition that describes when the kidneys have a malfunction and fail to filter the blood, control body's fluid levels and regulate. It stimulated by numerous causes which some of them can be treated while others cannot, such as toxins, trauma, autoimmune disease and infection. Showing signs like hypertension, edema (watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body), uremia (a raised level of wastes in the blood). In addition, "It's possible to lose as much as 90% of kidney function without experiencing any symptoms or problems"4 , and that shows how problematic and unpredictable kidney failure can be. Every day twelve people die waiting for a kidney according to National Kidney Foundation.
There are two types of kidney failure which are completely different.
The first type is called acute kidney failure that cause malfunction occurring suddenly and develop rapidly over a few hours or days. Although acute is considered fatal, it can be cured and normal health can be regained. The signs are fluid retention (swelling appears in ankle, legs or feet), drowsiness, shortness of breath, fatigue, confusion, chest pain and nausea. On the other hand, chronic kidney failure happens when kidney function is lost gradually over long time. In the early stages, normal checkups rarely detect it due to its non specified symptoms caused by other illnesses and because the kidneys are adjustable and able to offset for the lost function, until irrecoverable damage has
occurred.
To conclude, the two types of renal failure are extremely lethal. Additionally, if it didn’t take lives, it will cause a very painful life style as one of them is not curable while the other is reversible. Medicine is still in a revolutionary state that keep impressing the world with it discoveries like some scientists making a kidney from stem cells that was successfully tested on pigs and that is one step closer to being able to grow human replacement kidneys. This new discovery gives hope for kidney failure patients.