1
Blood test
2
Blood pressure check
3
Urine test
Should you get tested?
Anyone with high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, obesity, smokes or vapes, had acute kidney injury, has family history of kidney failure, is over 60 years of age, or is a First Nations Australian over 18 years, should get tested.
Had a stroke, heart attack or have heart failure
Diabetes
Current or former smoker / vaper
High blood pressure
Family history of kidney failure, dialysis, or kidney transplant
First Nations Australian
Very overweight or obese
Acute kidney injury
Non-Indigenous Australian aged 60 and over
If any of these apply to you, ask your GP for a full Kidney Health Check: blood test, blood pressure check AND a piss take.
Download a GP letter to help the conversation.
Get involved
Knowledge is power
- Register for Kidney Health 4 Life
- Download a factsheet on Albuminuria (the protein that can ‘leak’ into urine when your kidneys are damaged).
Use your musical talents
Downloadable music sheet, record and share with the community from 3rd of August. Choir, Big Band, solo, perform it live, whatever you can, spread the message and have some fun doing it!
Spread awareness in your local community
Between 10-17 August is Kidney Action Week – the perfect time to spread awareness. Download free posters and more to hang up in your workplace or host a stall, or simply buy some fun merch to help share the message.
Healthcare Professionals
Help spread the word in your practice during Kidney Action Week!
Tell me more
Too common! 1 in 7 Australians are living with markers of kidney disease, though most of them don’t even know it. Unfortunately, rates of kidney disease are only increasing, and Australia now has a kidney crisis.
A kidney piss test, called a urine albumin:creatinine ratio (uACR), measures protein in your urine. Protein can ‘leak’ into urine when your kidneys are damaged. A urine test alone won’t give you the full story but finding protein in your urine may be an early sign of kidney disease.
The short answer is no. If you have ANY of the risk factors for kidney disease we always recommend getting a full Kidney Health Check from your GP: blood test, blood pressure check, AND a piss take!
Kidney disease often has no symptoms until it’s advanced. It’s not uncommon for people to lose 90% of their kidney function before symptoms appear. Even once the kidneys have failed and someone needs life-long dialysis or a kidney transplant to survive, the treatments (and the associated difficulties) are behind closed doors and not highly visible. It’s a hidden disease and the kidney community often feel unseen as a result. Another reason that raising awareness is so important.
Dialysis is a life-saving treatment where a machine performs some of the jobs that a healthy kidney would usually do. During dialysis, a person’s blood runs through a machine, and the machine cleans the blood of toxins and gets rid of extra fluid. While it’s necessary to keep people alive, it also zaps people’s energy and freedom, as they need to be connected to the machine around 5 hours a day, 3 days a week, indefinitely.
The ‘piss’ term may be uncomfortable for some. But as a community we can no longer stay quiet. To break through the noise and be heard we must be bold. And we whole-heartedly believe it’s better to be uncomfortable for a campaign than uncomfortable from a late kidney disease diagnosis.
Your kidneys are the unsung heroes of your body, working 24-hours-a-day, every day.
They clean around 200 litres of blood per day, filtering out toxins and getting rid of extra fluid via urine.
“[If it wasn’t for] routine medical checks, I would never have known I had kidney failure until stage five, which is what normally happens.”
- Mark
“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.”
- Jodie
“[My kidney function is] down to a bit over 10% now and would never had known if it wasn’t for a urine test that showed high protein leakage.”