Your kidneys play a vital role in your body. They work hard to clean your blood and create urine for you 24 hours a day. Without kidney function, you would struggle to process toxins and eliminate waste, and this would have a devastating impact on your health.
Even though many associate kidney disease with pain weeing or blood in the wee, kidney disease is largely symptomless. In fact, you can lose 90% of kidney function with no warning.
By the time symptoms are felt people are close to kidney failure. It’s not surprising that kidney disease is so often underdiagnosed, until it’s too late to do anything about it.
The kidney failure diagnoses results in the need for sudden, serious, and life-changing interventions to stay alive. Life quality quickly becomes a thing of the past as people are sentenced to years of dialysis – connected to a machine that slowly cleans out all the toxins from the blood 3 times a week, 5 hours a day. It’s a life sentence for the patient and their families.
Lesley was only 29 years old when she was diagnosed with under 10% kidney function. She’s been on dialysis now for over 12 years, still waiting for a transplant. Although she’s a warrior and extremely positive person, kidney disease is something she doesn’t wish upon anyone. “I was diagnosed quite suddenly, and the diagnosis changed my life. It’s quite shocking to suddenly be hooked up to a machine 3 times a week, 5 hours a day just to perform a normal bodily function. I urge everyone who is at risk to get a Kidney Health Check from your GP. Do whatever you can to postpone kidney failure.”
“Shane was a fit and healthy person, heavily involved in sport, but we didn’t know that under it all, his kidneys were failing, probably for years. Early detection is so important because the earlier you find out, the more you can educate yourself and the better equipped you are to prolong your life and wellbeing.”
In 2013, Jodie’s husband Shane was diagnosed with kidney disease but didn’t realise there was anything he needed to do – after all, he felt fit and healthy. Shane wished he had known there were steps that could be taken to manage his diagnosis and slow the progression of the disease. In 2019 he was told his kidney function had deteriorated to just 6%. One year later he died from a kidney-related heart attack at the age of 48 leaving behind his wife, Jodie and their five daughters.
53-year-old Shaliendra stumbled across a chronic kidney disease diagnosis during a general checkup for his executive team at work. Living a healthy lifestyle as a non-drinker, non-smoker, Shaliendra was told in 2008 that he had high blood pressure; however, no doctor could tell him why. Fast forward to 2015 when a mandatory workplace annual health check was conducted and it all started to make sense – Shaliendra’s kidney function was at 52%, something he was completely oblivious to and something that had not been explored by doctors aware of his high blood pressure, despite being a major risk factor of chronic kidney disease.
An engineering graduate and Senior Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing at Optus, Shaliendra has a curiosity for research and how things work, so he has since taken it upon himself to adapt his lifestyle to prolong his quality of life, making adjustments to his diet and physical activity to ensure he is at optimal health and able to delay having to be on dialysis.
Shaliendra’s main message is that "it’s not the end. If you get an early diagnosis, then you can manage it extremely well and live a normal life". He encourages people not to look at results with a spot lens and look at how it tracks against your own trends.
With a natural decline in kidney function with age, Shaliendra’s kidney function is now at 48% - a progression he has slowed since diagnosis and has monitored regularly.
Diabetes or high blood pressure are the underlying cause in 50% of kidney failure cases. There’s also a number of other risk factors:
The good news is that if detected early, deterioration in kidney function can be reduced by up to 50%. New treatments can slow progression to kidney failure by up to 15 years, and in some cases even stopping progression. This means staying out of hospital and living your best life for longer.
If you’re at risk, ask your GP for a simple Kidney Health Check. This involves getting your wee, blood and blood pressure tested and will tell you how well your kidneys are working.
