How do you check for kidney disease? - Rheumatoid arthritis | ra kidney disease

How do you check for kidney disease?




A doctor speaks with a patient in his office.
How do you check for kidney disease?
We routinely check for chronic kidney disease with two tests, a blood test and a urine test.
The blood test measures how well the kidneys are filtering the blood and that's called the GFR.
A GFR above 60 is considered normal.The GFR below 60 may mean that you have chronic kidney disease.
The urine test measures protein in the urine.Protein is a component of the blood which doesn't normally pass
through the kidney filter into the urine.If we detect protein in the urine it
means the kidney filter is damaged and may reflect chronic kidney disease.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60yWU92qsnk


Rheumatoid arthritis | ra kidney disease




If you have RA, make sure your doc checks
your kidneys. Find out why… next
RA Puts Kidneys at Risk
Marianne Wait writing for Arthritis Today
reported people with rheumatoid arthritis
(RA) are almost 5 percent more likely than
other people to develop reduced kidney function,
a sign of chronic kidney disease, according
to a study published recently in the American
Journal of Kidney Diseases.
Although that figure may not sound high, senior
study author Eric Matteson, MD, chair of the
rheumatology department at Mayo Clinic in
Rochester, Minn., says it’s significant.
“It’s a big deal when you think there’s
1.5 million patients with RA, and how frequent
kidney disease is becoming in the population.”
This study looked at the health records of
1,623 people â€" 813 people who were diagnosed
with rheumatoid arthritis between 1980 and
2007 and 813 people without RA who were similar
in terms of age, gender, weight and other
factors. Among those who had normal kidney
function when they entered the study, 25 percent
of those with RA and 20 percent of those without
RA developed mildly or moderately reduced
kidney function over 20 years. There was no
difference in the rate of severe kidney dysfunction.
RA patients who had high levels of inflammation
in the first year after RA diagnosis (as measured
by the blood test known as erythrocyte sedimentation
rate, or “sed rate”) were more likely
than others to develop reduced kidney function.
“The general conclusion from that is that
inflammation is a risk factor for renal dysfunction,”
says Dr. Matteson.
Comment: The risk is not impressive at first
glance but it is significant.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EN3Uw-SAXA