What are some of the most dramatic kidney failure symptoms that people might experience?
JAI RADHAKRISHNAN, MD: If a person feels perfectly and suddenly feels run down, tired, or weak, they should definitely seek help from a practitioner. Kidney failure could be the cause for all this. If there’s pain in the flanks where the kidneys are, if you have pain down there and it’s recurrent and disabling, you should definitely go to a doctor, because there could be a stone sitting there, causing progressive kidney damage. If you have a burning of the urine, if you feel scratching in the skin, these are some of the signs, or you’ve lost your appetite out of the blue, for no reason, or you’re not able to concentrate, your mind’s wandering. All these symptoms could relate to a kidney problem. What are some of the more subtle symptoms of a kidney problem? LEONARD STERN, MD: A person might urinate more frequently at night, or their ankles might be swollen, or the screening test will have shown that their blood pressure is mildly elevated. Those could be the first presentations of some
