Kidney is one of the principal organs for our body, whose function is to excrete water. When there is kidney illness, water can not be excreted from our body and this may cause renal swelling. Swelling is the most common symptom of kidney disease and it can be mild or severe: Mild cases have only eyelids or facial swelling in the morning or gaining a little weight. While severe ones have whole body obvious swelling and even hydrothorax, ascites and sometimes gaining dozens of kilograms.
The most common symptom should be pitting swelling: with your fingers press down you will see the emergence of pit.
There are two kind of reasons for renal swelling. One is glomerular filtration declined but renal tubular reabsorption of sodium and water is still good. This situation caused water-sodium retention and it always accompanied by whole body increased capillary permeability at this time. So tissue space has water retention, which is seen in nephritis. Another reason is massive proteinuria cause low plasma protein.
Kidney swelling is whole body swelling caused by primary kidney disease. It is the main manifestation and the important clue for nephritis diagnosis. Kidney swelling can be divided into Nephritis swelling and kidney disease swelling.
Kidney disease swelling is one of the main symptoms of nephrotic syndromes. This kind of swelling starts from lower limbs because of the low protein content of the tissue space.
Nephritis swelling is often seen in acute glomerulonephritis. This kind of swelling starts from eyelids and facial part because the high protein content of the tissue space.
Chronic glomerular inflammation may sometimes together with swelling, because the epibiotic renal unit can compensate in some degree.But it is not so obvious like acute glomerulonephritis. If there is swelling, its pathogenesis must relate to next factors:
① the obvious decrease of normal renal unit make the total area of filtration decreasing obviously.
②continuous renal high blood pressure accentuated the burden of left heart, and severe cases may lead to heart failure
③Hypoproteinemia caused by long period proteinuria
