Frequently Asked Questions What is kidney disease?
• Chronic kidney disease includes conditions that damage your kidneys and decrease their ability to keep you healthy. • If kidney disease gets worse, wastes can build to high levels in your blood and make you feel sick. • You may develop complications like high blood pressure, anemia (low blood count), weak bones, poor nutritional health and nerve damage. • Also, kidney disease increases your risk of having heart and blood vessel disease. These problems may happen slowly over a long period of time. • Chronic kidney disease may be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders. • Early detection and treatment can often keep chronic kidney disease from getting worse. • When kidney disease progresses, it may eventually lead to kidney failure, which requires dialysis or a kidney transplant to maintain life.
