In the interior of your upper abdominal cavity are two bean shaped organs called the kidneys! If you have literally seen a kidney bean they actually do look very similar, but of course they are very different things!
The function of the kidneys is to extract waste from your blood, create urine, balance your body fluids (by detoxing if need be), and other important body functions! Needless to say, you may donate one if you’re healthy, but they are so essential you can’t live completely without them! Therefore, since knowledge is power, keep an eye out for these potential warning signs that you may have a kidney problem!
1) Changes in your urination
The easiest sign to interpret is if there is a significant or unusual change in habit or coloring of your urination. Whether that means you have less or more urine than usual, a change in color (right off the bat if there is the presence of blood seek medical consultation immediately), excess of foam, smell, or pain could all be indicators of something being amiss in the kidneys.
2) Excessive tiredness
A hormone called erythropoietin, or EPO for short, tells your blood to make red blood cells. You guessed it, EPO is made in the kidneys, and when they are not working correctly there isn’t enough of the hormone to keep up the production of red blood cells. This means less oxygen is getting throughout your body leaving you tired and weak as the day goes on.
If you are feeling excessively tired often, even after what should have been a good night’s rest, then you may be experiencing a symptom that your kidneys aren’t producing enough hormones for you. “Chills” also are a symptom that can be experienced due to low EPO and with low blood cell account, leads into anemia.
3) Swelling
Excess fluid in your body can decide to reside in the oddest of places when it isn’t removed by functioning kidneys, resulting in swelling. In other words, the fluid that would be removed from your body stays inside.
If you notice unusual swelling in your face, hands, feet (perhaps your shoes don’t fit as well as they should as of late), or anywhere else for that matter, it may be due to the kidneys having a harder time removing fluid than they should.
4) Bad taste in your mouth
When the kidneys are not doing their job resulting in uremia, a buildup of waste over time in the body, the body may react adversely and give you the taste of metal or blood in your mouth. Nothing will seem to taste right, or is dulled, and you just generally have an awful taste in your mouth.
5) Leg and back pain
Leg and back pain in the area where the kidneys would be (the lower back area essentially) is often indicative of many of the serious kidney issues that could occur such as kidney stones, bladder infections, or cysts which lead to kidney disease.
Warm heating pads and stretching those areas may provide some relief, but if pain persists do seek medical consultation, especially if it’s in conjunction with any of the other warning signs on this list!
6) Dizziness
Since the kidneys detoxify your blood, if you’re experiencing dizziness on a regular basis, it could be because your blood is having trouble moving oxygen throughout your body, and most importantly your brain, with all the gunk in the way that would ordinarily be removed by the kidneys.
7)Nausea
When there is a buildup of waste in your body due to the kidneys having issues, your body will experience nausea as a result of the “trash compactors” being overly full and will seek to purge, since it can’t purify, inducing the urge to vomit.
You might not be surprised to know that if you excessively vomit you will also be purging your body of nutrients that you didn’t absorb, and food that you could have used for energy. Extant purging could lead to weight-loss (not the kind we should be happy about since it comes from unnatural starvation) and vitamin deficiencies.
8)Rashes
The difficulties of uremia, that buildup of toxins in the body, do not end with simply vomiting all the time and feeling dizzy, but humans can experience rashes that breakout unpredictably all over the body, similar looking to acne as the toxins collect. Sufferers report that the itchiness is not easily soothed by simply itching and recommend creams and lotions to aid in the coping of that particular symptom.
Although some of these signs may seem quite overt, others can be quite subtle. Like I said before, knowledge is power, and the more informed and aware we may be about our own health just may also give us the power to not only help ourselves, but also possibly notice the symptoms in another!
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