Is My Poor Appetite Caused by Polycystic Kidney Disease

Recently, a Polycystic Kidney Disease patient consulted me she is experiencing poor appetite and want to know whether it is related with her kidney problem. As a matter of fact, Polycystic Kidney Disease indeed cause poor appetite, especially when it develops to advanced stage.

Polycystic Kidney Disease is genetic kidney problem and clinically marked by countless cysts in kidney. With the enlargement and increase of kidney cyst, kidney function decreases. Kidneys are primarily take charge of excreting wastes from our body. Once kidney function decreases, these wastes can not be discharged timely and they build up in the blood. Wastes circulate with our blood and when the level of it increases to a certain value, our internal organs are threatened seriously. This is the reason why people with high creatinine, a kind of wastes, are suggested to start dialysis.

For people with Polycystic Kidney Disease, when wastes in blood affect their digestive system, they will experience poor appetite system. Besides, if these wastes have damaged their digestive tract and cause ulcer, they may also suffer from nausea, vomit, hemorrhage of digestive tract and bad taste in mouth and so on.

In cases of Polycystic Kidney Disease, poor appetite is generally caused by high level of waste in blood. Therefore if any PKD patient found he has this symptom, he can have a test about his creatinine and if test report shows extremely high creatinine level (usually more than 5), he can consider dialysis to remove toxins in the blood.

For PKD patients with poor appetite, they are also likely to suffer from fatigue, pale look, poor concentration, bleeding tendency and reduced urine output. All these symptoms are caused by decreased kidney function. Therefore, the best preventive measures for them is to protect residual kidney function. As long as there is enough more health kidney function, wastes can be discharged effectively, and also these symptoms can be prevented effectively.