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Purpura Nephritis

What is Purpura Nephritis

What are the tests for Purpura Nephritis

What causes Purpura Nephritis?

What can induce Purpura Nephritis?

Symptoms of Purpura Nephritis

Diet for Purpura Nephritis

What are the treatments for Purpura Nephritis

What is Purpura Nephritis

Purpura Nephritis (also known as Anaphylactoid Purpura Nephritis) is a kidney disease, which occurs when Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) causes kidney damages. Pathological changes of Purpura Nephritis focus on mesangial proliferation, necrosis of focal glomerular capillary loops and formation of crescents. Besides, in mesangial area as well as the surrounding area, deposition of IgA and other immune globulin can be found.

Anaphylactoid Purpura Nephritis is a secondary disease, so we can stop its progression only when we bring its primary disease under control effectively. Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) is the primary disease of Purpura Nephritis, which can damage any of our organs such as joint, nerve and kidney. Purpura Nephritis develops to kidney failure easily, so once HSP patients found they have symptoms of kidney damage, they need to go to effective treatment as early as possible so as to prevent bad consequence.

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What are the tests for Purpura Nephritis

Routine urine test: for Purpura Nephritis patients, urine analysis always shows excessive protein and red blood cells in urine.

Routine blood test: blood test helps to know whether there are increased metabolin like creatinine and urea nitrogen.

Kidney function test: kidney function test focuses on leaning how well the kidney function and this test involves urine specific gravity, creatinine, urea nitrogen, sediments and so on.

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What causes Purpura Nephritis?

It is found that there are IgA immune complexes and other immune complexes in mesangial area when we suffer from Purpura Nephritis. Also, the distribution of IgG and IgM is the same with the distribution of IgA. All of that shows patients with Purpura Nephritis are suffering immune dysfunction. IgA and other immune complex can cause immoderate inflammatory reaction and thus impair our kidney function. Hence, the root cause of Purpura Nephritis is closely related with abnormal immune system.

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What can induce Purpura Nephritis?

Purpura Nephritis involves in allergic reaction caused by infection of bacterium, virus and parasite, food allergy, drug allergy, or stimulation comes from plant pollen, insect bite and cold.

Infection : According to statics, about one third patients have infection of the upper respiratory tract before the onset of Purpura Nephritis. The common causative agents of Purpura Nephritis include Hepatitis B Virus, EpsteinBarr Virus, Rubella Virus, Coxsackievirus, Mycoplasma, Amebae, Legionella and so on.

Drugs : drugs which can cause Purpura Nephritis include antibiotics vancomycin and cefuroxime, ACE inhibitors, enalapril and captopril, anti-inflammatory agent diclofenac, as well as experiments of tuberculin.

Food : some foods cause allergic reaction easily, so they also can be the root causes for Purpura Nephritis. This kind of food refers to fish, shrimp, crab, clam, white spirit, nutlet, petits pois, wheat, and chocolate and so on.

Infections, such as urinary tract infections (UTI)

Others : cold stimulation, insect bites, allergy comes from plant pollen, vaccine inoculation, animal feather, paint and so on.

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Symptoms of Purpura Nephritis

Symptoms related with kidney damages caused by Purpura Nephritis include proteinuria, blood urine, and decreased kidney function.

Apart from these symptoms related with kidney damages, there are some other symptoms.

Rash : Rash is the major and primary clinical manifestation of Purpura Nephritis. It occurs more on the legs, hypogastrium and buttocks and with rah, we may have itching feeling. Usually, rash disappear one to two weeks later and according to clinical experiments, it takes at least 2 weeks for HSP cause kidney damages.

Arthritis : Arthralgia is a common symptom of Henoch-Schonlein Purpura (HSP) and it tends to occur in patient's ankle. As Purpura Nephritis is caused by Henoch-Schonlein Purpura, so it can occur in Purpura Nephritis as well.

Others : Lymphadenectasis, hepatosplenomegaly, headache and convulsion.

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Diet for Purpura Nephritis

For patients with Purpura Nephritis, a well-planned diet is very important. The followings are the several dietary principles that the patients need to pay extra care. Through these dietary principles and timely treatment, Purpura Nephritis can be brought under control effectively.

Firstly, food which can cause allergy such as crab, shrimp, and mutton should be avoided by Purpura Nephritis patients.

Secondly, foods for Purpura Nephritis patients should be light in the taste, nourishing and easy to be absorbed. These foods with high protein and high salt as well as greasy foods should be taboo for Purpura Nephritis patients as these foods can worsen kidney damages.

Thirdly, in order to ease the burden of the stomach and intestine, eating too much should be avoided, which is also helpful for prevent bleeding of gastrointestinal tract.

Fourthly, food should be highly processed because coarse foods also can cause bleeding of gastrointestinal tract.

Fifthly, for the sake of their healthy, Purpura Nephritis patients also need to be far away from wine and smoking.

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What are the treatments for Purpura Nephritis

Hormonotherapy

Hormonotherapy is the most commonly seen treatment for immunological diseases like Purpura Nephritis. While treating Purpura Nephritis with Hormonitherapy, different kinds of Immunosuppressive medicines are applied to block inflammatory response which occurs because IgA immune complexes or other immune complexes deposit in kidneys. Immunosuppressive medicines blocks inflammatory response quickly and effectively, helping to prevent further kidney damages. But unfortunately, as immunosuppressive medicines do nothing with clearance of immune complexes, once Purpura Nephritis stop taking medicines or reducing does, inflammatory response appears again, as a consequence of which, new kidney damages occur and Purpura Nephritis progresses.

Hormonotherapy takes the dominant position for treating Purpura Nephritis and it indeed shows fast treatment effects. It but disappointedly, long-term application of Hormonotherapy will present patients lots of side effects aside from visible treatment effects, such as bleeding, bloating, breast tenderness or enlargement, headaches and mood changes. These side effects are especially harmful children by affecting their mental development and physical development. Therefore, while choose treatment for children with Purpura Nephritis, parents should be more cautious.

Plasma Exchange

exchange helps to alleviate kidney damages and slow down the progression of Purpura Nephritis by clearing harmful substances like immune complexes away from the blood. But for an individual with Purpura Nephritis, if he really wants to live a future life without dialysis and kidney transplant, simply plasma exchange treatment is far from enough.

Immunotherapy

Immunotherapy is a new treatment which combines western medicines, plasma exchange and Chinese Herbal Treatment. The whole course of treating Purpura Nephritis with Immunotherapy is divided into six steps.

Immunodiagnosis

Immunodiagnosis helps us have a thorough knowledge about the exact type of immune complexes as well as the exact location of immune complexes. It can also help is know well about the amount of the immune complexes. Only when we solve these problems, can we determine what medicines we need to use and how much medicines we need to use while treating Purpura Nephritis.

Clearance of immune complexes

Immune complexes are formed when immune system is abnormal or immunity is lower. Immune complexes circulate with blood and cause inflammatory response when they deposit in kidney. If we do not clear immune complexes in the blood, more and more immune complexes deposit in kidney and more and more kidney damages will be caused. In this step, plasma exchange is applied to clean Purpura Nephritis patient's blood.

Blocking of immoderate inflammatory reaction

As immune complexes deposit in kidney, inflammatory response occurs which cause kidney damages directly, so we need to block immoderate immune complexes with immunosuppressive medications firslty. When immoderate inflammatory reaction is blocked, further kidney damages are avoided effectively.

Immune tolerance

Immune complexes can not be cleared over night, so we need kidney and immune complexes co-exist for some time before we remove them. During this short period, to prevent inflammatory response, regular application of immunosuppressive medicines is necessary.

Adjustment of immune system

IgA immune complexes and other immune complexes appear because of abnormal immune system as well as lower immunity. Hence, this step is aimed at returning abnormal immune system as well as increasing immunity, so that no more immune complexes are formed in the blood. Also, Chinese medicines have function to increase our self-curative ability. On the condition of this, immune complexes in kidneys will finally be cleared away little by little.

Protection of immune system

This step focuses on protecting as well as strengthening patient's immune system, so as to protect patients from being affected again by Purpura Nephritis.

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