INTRODUCTION

        The Number of people who suffer from kidney disease in India is in millions. Fortunately, the majority of kidney disease either improve spontaneously, or can be treated with medicine and surgery and do not seriously impair patients’ lives. However, some people develop irreversible kidney disease. This type of kidney disease is called chronic renal failure (CRF). In medicine, the term “renal” means kidney. Except in a few cases, CRF, invariably progresses to a stage at which practically entire kidney function is lost. This is called End Stage Renal Discase (ESRD). Each year, approximately 1, 00,000 people develop ESRD in our country. Once this stage is reached, the treatment options are very limited and include life- long dialysis or renal transplantation. Both these options are exorbitantly expensive and not many of our patients can afford. Therefore, our efforts should be to prevent development of CRF, which is possible in some cases. If CRF develops, it should be aggressively managed to prevents or delay its progression to ESRD. This can be achieved with the help of periodic check-up by a kidney doctor (nephrologists). Unfortunately, not many patients follow this advise and ignore their kidney problem until it is far advanced. The reason for this poor compliance is that patients with mild CRF are often asymptomatic. It must be stressed that CRF cannot be taken lightly even in absence of any symptoms, because it invariable progresses to ESRD, for which, as mentioned earlier, there are very limited treatment options.

        This book will help you and your family understand the vital role played by the kidneys in maintaining health. This will be followed by a description of the consequences that result from kidney failure and cause of kidney failure. It will then describe the symptoms of kidney disease, methods of diagnosing kidney disease and the currently available treatment for kidney failure. Finally, the book will stress on how to take care of the kidneys.