Life Expectancy of Polycystic Kidney Disease with Blood in Urine

Polycystic kidney disease is a hereditary renal disease in which the kidneys are filled with numerous cysts of varying sizes. With the progression of illness conditions, patients will have blood in urine. Is blood in urine a serious condition and will it aggravate PKD?

Blood in urine is a common symptom of PKD and there are more than half PKD cases have this experience. When the bleeding is severe, it can cause renal colic when blood clots pass ureter. Blood in urine is often accompanied by leucocyte urine and protein in urine(usually less than 1.0g/d). If there is infection or inflammation in the kidneys, blood in urine will be worsened and there will also be obvious pyuria, back pain and fever.

What are the possible causes of blood in urine?

Blood in urine is mainly caused by the following reasons. One is renal hematuria. The oppression of continuously enlarged cysts to surrounding renal tissues damage the renal functional units and start the process of renal fibrosis. The glomerular basement is damaged and its permeability is increased, as a result, the blood cells will pass through the glomerular filtration membrane and be discharged into urine and form hematuria. The other reason is rupture of blood vessels due to enlarged cysts. In addition, blood in urine can be caused by other reasons such as urinary tract infection, kidney stone or cancerization. If blood in urine lasts for more than one week or the patient is older than 50 years old, related tests should be done to rule out the possibility of cancerization.

What are the damages and dangers of blood in urine?

Once there is blood in urine, patients are easy to have abdominal infection, high fever, systemic edema, sharp decline of renal functions. Since blood urine in PKD is highly recurrent, patients are easy to have anemia---there will be sharp decrease of platelet and the blood coagulation mechanism will also be affected. In series conditions, it might cause renal failure.

What are the treatments for blood urine in PKD?

Since there are several causes of blood urine, the first step is to make clear the exact cause and remove it. Besides, patients should stop working and have good rest.

After blood in urine, most PKD patients develop infections which will in turn worsen hematuria, therefore proper prevention and treatments for infections are necessary.

Then more effective treatments should be offered to eliminating blood stasis and improving blood circulation. Weather it is the damaged glomerular filtration membrane or ruptured blood vessels, the root problem is the continuous enlargement of the cysts. Herbal medicines have good effects on alleviating hematuria in PKD. The biological ingredients in some herbal medicines can soften the cyst wall and increase its permeability so as to let the cyst fluid be re-absorbed into the blood vessels. Active ingredients can also inactivate the cyst wall cells and inhibit secretion of more cyst fluids. What is more, herbal medicines can increase blood flow in the kidneys and provide adequate blood and oxygen and some necessary nutrition for repairing damaged renal tissues and improving renal functions.