Anemia in Patients with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF)

Anemia is common among people with Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), called Renal Anemia. Some people regard it as a kind of disease. However, it is a complication coming from CRF rather than an independent disease. But why would it happen?

The occurrence of Anemia mainly blames on CRF. Four reasons accounting for its happening.
One is the reduced production of erythrogenin (EPO) and poor hematopoietic function of bone marrow. Those two factors should be blamed to the damaged kidneys.

The second reason is poor appetite in patients with CRF. Poor appetite roots in nausea, vomiting or other symptoms resulting from the disease. With poor appetite, patients eat less food, which lead to less iron, protein and folic acid intake. Those things are exactly the main raw materials for blood, that’s why Anemia appears.

Thirdly, patients with CRF which means a great deal of toxins and metabolic wastes accumulating in human body, those toxins contribute to the repressive hematopoietic function of bone marrow.
Last but not the least, Chronic Renal Failure could give rise to coagulation disorder, and cause the subcutaneous, nose and digestive tract bleeding. To make things worse, frequent blood drawing for the tests or hemodialysis would aggravate the Anemia more or less.

After knowing the causes, then how to deal with it?

The most common cause of Anemia in patients with CRF other than EPO deficiency is iron deficiency. You can find the later one in red meat. One thing you need to remember is too much red meat poses extra burden to your already impaired kidneys, so you need to talk with the doctor before implementing the plan. Apart from this, taking iron supplements is also workable.

Chronic Renal Failure Triggers Anemia

Anemia causing by chronic renal failure is called renal anemia. Evidence show that anemia boost the speed of ischemia and oxygen deficiency as well as oxidative stress resulting in glomerular and interstitial fibrosis.

When renal anemia occurs, you should take exams and check kidney function as early as possible. The root cause of renal anemia is kidney damages. If left untreated, it will significantly affect your quality of lives.

Why would chronic renal failure trigger anemia?

1. The secretion of erythrogenin decreases as renal atrophy occurs, which leads to the poor hematopoietic function of bone marrow.

2. Due to the occurrence of nausea and vomiting in patients with chronic renal failure, they have poor appetite. Under this condition, the intake of iron, folic acid and protein decline, consequently, hematopoietic raw material undersupply.

3. When the condition progresses to renal failure, hematopoietic function is inhibited.

4. Chronic renal failure causing coagulopathy together with hemodialysis and frequent blood tests aggravate anemia.

Renal anemia accompanies with a mild symptoms, people may not realize it until your condition progresses to a pretty serious stage. Symptoms and signs of renal anemia are:

Fatigue

Difficulty concentrating

Dizziness

Wide difference between systolic and diastolic blood pressure

Pale-looking

Shortness of breath

Palpitations

How to treat?

Renal anemia is caused by kidney damages, so before treating anemia, kidney disease should be remedied beforehand. Other ways to deal with the issue are:

EPO

Renal anemia is treated with genetically engineered form of EPO. It is injected under the skin 2-3 times a week.

Iron

Iron can be injected into your vein so as to circulate through your body.

Transfusion of red blood cells is another way to treat renal anemia.

All in all, control the progression of CKD is the foundation of treating renal anemia.

Will Chronic Pyelonephritis Cause Chronic Renal Failure

The persistent or recurrent Chronic Pyelonephritis would lead to Chronic Renal Failure (CRF), i.e. uremia. Conversely, if CRF patients are associated with renal infections, this would aggravate the condition. Those kinds of cases commonly happen in clinic, once the renal infections are being controlled, the symptoms will be greatly relieved, so we call it an irreversible factor. The treatment for CRF complicated with renal infections is pretty tricky, reasons are:

1. Blood flow of kidneys with Chronic Renal Failure patients is pretty small, so it takes a long time for antibacterial attaining an effective concentration in kidney tissues, which would resulting in the tendency of bacteria’s drug-resistance.

2. The pathologic bacteria of Chronic Renal Failure complicated with renal infections are often caught while in hospital, that’s why the drug-resistance strains are pretty much.

3. There are plenty of contradictions when using the antibacterial. For instance, reduction of using antibacterial is needed in order to avoid systemic drug toxicity. But after the reduction, the concentration of antibiotic in kidneys can’t finish the task to killing bacteria, so the curative effects are not good.

4. There are several antibiotics which should use with caution or be forbidden, because they may have renal toxicities. Those drugs have strong renal toxicities and should be taken with caution. Azotemia would be aggravated by using the tetracycline drugs; using nitrofurantoin might cause neuritis and other toxic symptoms in renal failure, so they shouldn’t be used especially for Chronic Renal Failure patients.

5. Due to drug excretory function degenerates, the longer the treatment is, the easier the accumulation will be. Some of the patients are eager to cure the diseases by taking uninterrupted medicines. Well, it doesn’t work. Conversely, it can lead to the invasion of resistant bacteria or even causes 2 or more bacteria mixed infections, which makes the treatment more difficult.

With the appearances of unceasing new antibacterial drugs and continuous update of therapies in recent years, the clinical recovery cases of Chronic Pyelonephritis increases. According to some reports, 31-42% of bacteriuria can be eliminated after taking standard bacterial treatment in six weeks. Meanwhile, the success rate of surgery increases among patients with Chronic Pyelonehpritis which complicated with abnormality, obstruction or vesicoureteral reflux. Among those 147 cases of Chronic Pyelonephritis patients, 49 with more than 13 years medical histories did not become Chronic Renal Failure until now. In conclusion, the persistent and recurrent of Chronic Pyelonephritis patients would lead to CRF in the end. But it can be corrected if treated timely.