How are your kidneys doing?
What are kidneys?
Kidneys are bean shaped organs roughly the size of your fist that sit toward the back of your abdomen. Your kidneys clean your blood and help you get rid of toxins by creating urine (pee) to get the toxins out.
Lab work.
My favorite topic.
GFR: Your GFR is your percent of kidney function. So anything above 60% is NORMAL. Anything below 60% is called “chronic kidney disease” BUT. Even if you have chronic kidney disease (CKD), this is still enough kidney function to clean the blood. When your GFR goes down to 10%, then it’s time to talk about dialysis.
You can have your GFR checked through blood work. Ask your primary care provider what your GFR is.
Other important labs: Ask your primary care provider if you have protein in your urine. Protein in the urine is an early sign of kidney disease. It’s a way to detect kidney disease before you actually lose kidney function.
Signs of kidney damage.
Woof (In my Kevin Kinloch, MD voice). There are no reliable signs of kidney damage until your kidney function is very low. This is why it is so important to have routine check ups with your primary car doctor.
Let’s talk about urine.
If you find yourself noticing a change in the color of your urine from clear to dark yellow, you should say ” Thank You Kidneys.” This just means the kidneys are doing their job. When your kidneys need to preserve water, the hang onto it and when your body has more than enough water, it releases the extra water into your urine. This is what changes the color. You cannot tell how well your kidneys are working based on the color of your urine.
If you notice that you have foamy urine, meaning after you pee, you notice a LAYER of foam on top- run, don’t walk to your kidney doctor. This is a sign of protein in the urine and it’s worth having it checked out.
If you have burning or pain with urination, you may have a urinary tract infection (UTI). You can learn about urinary tract infections on the UTI page.
Kidney Beans 