Creatinine 2.0, One Kidney, Increased Water Pill: Is This Serious

A:

Hi, thanks for emailing us. I am sad to hear you are suffering and feel upset now. Please do not worry, we will try our best to give you some useful suggestions or information. But do you have your test report? I suggest you to send to kidneycares@hotmail.com, so that we can have an overall understanding about your illness and then give you more practical advice.

You mentioned you only have one kidney and current creatinine level is 2.0. As for this point, I’d like to say it is normal to have slightly increased serum creatinine level with one kidney, but if your serum creatinine keeps increasing, you should be alert about kidney failure. You know kidneys are responsible for discharging excessive creatinine and serum creatinine level usually keeps increasing with the decrease of kidney function. Therefore, I suggest you to keep a close observation about your kidney condition.

Besides, you said you are taking water pills, right? Water pills are always used to deal with fluid retention. Are you suffering swelling problem now? Chronic kidney failure can cause retention of fluid in the body, so if you are experiencing edema, I am afraid you have probably developed chronic kidney failure.

Lastly, aside from elevated creatinine level and swelling, chronic kidney failure can also cause elevation of blood pressure, proteinuria (foams in urine), hematuria (blood urine), fatigue and poor appetite and so on. Do you have these symptoms? I suggest you to have further medical tests to know clearly whether your elevation of serum creatinine is caused by decreased kidney function. If yes, an effective treatment is urgently needed, otherwise, dialysis or kidney transplant will be needed in the near future.