Is Flu Associated with Acute Renal Failure (ARF)

Patient’s relatives: my husband’s uncle had flu and because he’s gotten so dehydrated today he’s been admitted to the hospital. Surprisingly, he almost went straight to ICU because he was diagnosed with Acute Renal Failure. Dialysis was setting up for him ASAP. Sure thing is his prognosis is apparently not great. My confusion is how would that happen? Is the ARF caused by the flu or just dehydration? Can the kidney failure recover once the flu is over? Is dialysis necessary forever or just temporarily?

According to the description above, the patient’s kidney failure can be caused by upper respiratory tract infection or serious dehydration. Upper respiratory tract infection is often responsible for acute nephritis, especially is related with hemolytic streptococcus. Sometimes the Renal Failure is symptomized as flu, the patient suffer from weakness, swelling of the face, headache and systemic ache. Besides, blood in urine, oliguria and proteinuria would occur as the result of the decreased kidney function. The patient aforementioned had flu before he was diagnosed with Acute Renal Failure. Therefore, there stands a chance that the ARF is induced by the respiratory tract infection. If the inference is true, then his acute kidney failure is caused by acute nephritis.

Another culprit accounting for the ARF may be the serious dehydration. Serious dehydration triggers pre-renal acute renal failure. This is because dehydration leads to inadequate blood volume and then triggers insufficient blood perfusion. Consequently, renal dysfunction occurs accordingly. To make things worse, the internal environment was damaged by the severe dehydration. All those influencing factors contribute to the sudden loss of his kidney function. As a result, Acute Renal Failure happens.

ARF happens all of a sudden, and requires dialysis as soon as possible to protect the remaining kidney function. Early treatment sometimes can help regain one’s kidney function. After the disease is cured, one’s kidney disease can be reversed day by day. However, there are many other factors involved in the prognosis, such as the physical condition, the age, how prompt the patient receives treatment and so on. Hope you really get your answers from the article.