Life Expectancy for Stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)

The number of people who get chronic kidney disease keeps on rising. At the very primary diseases course, the patients don’t have or just have symptoms that can be managed through medicines. However, over periods of time, glomerular artery damage can get deteriorated with gradual decline in renal functions. Having such primary factors such as high blood pressure, Diabetes, PKD, obstructive nephropathy can aggravate progression of glomerular sclerosis and onset of kidney failure. For people at stage 4 chronic kidney disease, the concerned issue is to how to effectively protect the kidneys, delay deterioration of renal damage and improve their life expectancy.

Stage 4 chronic kidney disease is defined as glomerular filtration rate 15-30%. A healthy individual has Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR) 90-120%. A concerned question among the patients is their elevated serum creatinine level. The high creatinine is caused by decreased kidney filtering functions. Some medicines will help you to reduce the high creatinine, such as ketosteril. However, the management of creatinine is not the single thing you should pay attention to, you will need to know the effective ways to delay decline of kidney function so that you can effectively stop your creatinine level from rising.

Targeted blood pressure is one of the treatment targets. Keeping BP under control will help to correct high perfusion and high filtration in glomerulus and delay further injury on renal parenchyma. Prevent some emergent conditions which can worsen aggravation of kidney condition, such as some Nephrotoxic medicines, severe inflammations, urinary tract obstructions, infections, traumas, etc. Regular visitation to doctors can reduce occurrence of such conditions and correct them timely.

Dietary modification will assist the treatment to control the disease. Limiting the intake of sodium and proteins are the two important points. Too much sodium can build up blood volume and elevate your blood pressure. A patient with high blood pressure or edema will need to reduce consumption of salt or sodium content processed foods. Generally recommended intake of protein is 0.6-0.8g/kg per day. High-quality animal proteins will produce less urea than plant animals, so they will be better choices. Your dietitian will provide suggestion based on your lab results and doctor advice. While a heavy protein diet is associated to heavier burden on kidneys, low protein diet can cause malnutrition and make the patients more prone for infections.

After the above, you may still have the concern, what is the life expectancy for stage 4 CKD? Management for current symptoms and proper dietary and nursing care play an important role. In addition to this, in different pathological disease types, the life expectancy also differ greatly. Those with Diabetes and high blood pressure tend to have a worse prognosis because the two are often complicated with other vital conditions such as heart disease, foot disease, eye disease, etc. It is hoped the people themselves learn as much as possible what they can do for their condition. It has been accepted that, chronic kidney disease can be controlled, however, not blocked completely. That means clinically most people with CKD develop kidney failure after years’ course. End-stage kidney disease treatment will include dialysis and kidney transplant. The concept in Chinese medicine treatment is in the different way. If one is at stage 4, want an improvement of kidney condition and avoid further damage, you may try traditional Chinese medicine treatment and by this life expectancy can be greatly improved.