What to Expect – Kidney Care

Chronic kidney disease, also known as chronic kidney failure, involves a gradual loss of kidney function. Diabetes and high blood pressure can lead to chronic kidney disease.

Your doctor will focus on treating the cause of the disease. Chronic kidney disease can lead to kidney failure if it’s not treated. Patients with kidney failure will need dialysis or a kidney transplant.

Your doctor may suspect you have renal hypertension, or high blood pressure related to kidney disease, if you’re being treated for high blood pressure that isn’t well controlled or if you have chronic kidney disease.

Your doctor likely will prescribe medications to control your high blood pressure. These often are enough to treat the condition. If medications aren’t enough, you may need a minimally invasive procedure or surgery to improve blood flow or bypass the blocked blood vessel. These procedures are similar to those we use to treat heart and vascular patients.

There are two types of kidney dialysis: hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Both are used to treat end-stage kidney failure. You may need dialysis if your kidneys can no longer filter waste from the blood.

Hemodialysis

Before you start hemodialysis, we’ll perform a minor surgical procedure to insert a hemodialysis access. This access allows us to connect you to the dialysis machine.

Once you’re connected, your blood will pass into the machine, which will clean waste products out of the blood. Then your blood will pass back into your body.

Peritoneal dialysis

Peritoneal dialysis is less common than hemodialysis. It uses the lining of your abdomen to filter your blood.

Before you start peritoneal dialysis, we’ll insert a soft tube called a catheter into your belly. The process starts by passing a bag of dialysis solution through the catheter and into the belly. The solution absorbs waste materials from the body. After a few hours, this solution is drained from the belly, and the process starts again.