Symptoms and treatment of acute pyelonephritis

Pyelonephritis is a dangerous inflammatory kidney disease that, without timely treatment, can lead to serious consequences, including kidney failure and kidney loss, death. It is important to know about the main symptoms of acute pyelonephritis, this will help to quickly understand that the disease has arisen and take the necessary measures.

• Causes
• Complications of acute pyelonephritis
• Symptoms
• Diagnostics
• Home Treatment
• Prevention

The disease always begins with an acute stage, which can last up to several weeks. Without treatment at this stage, severe complications can begin to develop, and after the acute phase chronic can occur with periodic exacerbations.

Depending on the extent of the lesion, two main forms of pyelonephritis are distinguished: one-sided, when one kidney is affected, and two-sided, when both kidneys are affected. Two-sided is much less common, but it is more dangerous, because the inflammatory process is much more extensive.

Classifications of the disease there are several more, it is worth mentioning the main ones, which are most often addressed by specialists involved in the treatment of acute pyelonephritis:

1. On the way of distribution. Highlight the descending, in which the infection spreads with the blood flow, and acute ascending pyelonephritis, when the bacterial lesion passes from other organs of the genitourinary system, for example, with cystitis. The ascending form is the most common.
2. Forms by the nature of the current. Isolate acute serous pyelonephritis, which is a rather mild form without the formation of pus, and acute purulent pyelonephritis, in which there is a purulent focus, carbuncle. There can be several abscesses, they can begin to merge and form an abscess that can spread to the entire kidney.

These are the main forms of pyelonephritis, which are encountered by specialists. Serous form of the disease can go into purulent without proper treatment, which is transferred and treated much more difficultly, and more often leads to negative different consequences.

The code of this disease in the ICD-10 registry is N10-N12, depending on the form of pyelonephritis.

Important!If you have symptoms of pyelonephritis, you should immediately consult a doctor, it is extremely important to conduct a full-fledged diagnosis, the symptomatology of this disease can talk about other problems in the excretory system.

Causes

The main cause of acute pyelonephritis - getting a bacterial infection in the kidney, with this disease usually affects its individual areas. Ways of spreading the infection can be two: with blood flow for various systemic diseases and directly from other sick organs of excretory system.

Most often, pyelonephritis leads to cystitis, an inflammatory process in the bladder. Also affect its occurrence can be urethritis, inflammation of the urinary canal, and other similar diseases. It should be noted that in girls and women this disease is diagnosed more often, this is due to the peculiarities of the structure of the genitourinary system in women. Due to the length of the urethra and a number of other features of the infection, it is easier to spread through the excretory system.

However, it is worth noting that the penetration of bacterial infection is sometimes not enough to develop a full-fledged inflammatory process. In order to develop the disease, one or more of the following factors must be present:

• hypothermia, the most common cause of pyelonephritis and other diseases of the genitourinary system;
• permanent stress, fatigue, overwork, other factors that affect the body's resistance to various infectious diseases;
• decrease in immunity, which can occur against the background of colds and infectious diseases.

Because of the above factors, usually begins to develop acute pyelonephritis, cystitis and other such diseases. Therefore, it is easy enough to protect against infection by prevention.

Complications of acute pyelonephritis

The consequences of this inflammatory process can be extremely severe, with the development of inflammation, purulent foci can form, the infection will spread to the entire kidney, an abscess will appear. Due to abscess and complete organ damage, acute renal failure may occur. With extensive inflammation and especially bilateral pyelonephritis, a fatal outcome may occur.

Also it is worth remembering that an acute illness can go into a chronic form, which is extremely difficult to get rid of.

Symptoms

Symptoms of pyelonephritis are ambiguous, they are easily confused with signs of other diseases or not notice if they are not sufficiently expressed. In general, if you suspect a disease, you need to pay attention to the following symptoms:

• pain in the lumbar region, can be pulled, periodically strengthened, then subsided;
• if the disease is accompanied by urethritis or cystitis, the frequency of urination may increase, when urinating, pain and burning occur;
• at the peak of the acute stage, the overall body temperature can rise to 37 - 38 degrees, on the whole, severe weakness, malaise is observed.

In children up to a year to determine the exact cause of anxiety is especially difficult, for children characterized by pain in the abdominal region, rather than the lower back. Since pyelonephritis is often accompanied by cystitis or urethritis, it is worth paying attention to discoloration of the discharge.

In pregnancy, the appearance of the inflammatory process in the kidneys is also quite easy to miss, because back pain may be present all the time because of the growth of the fetus. Therefore, pregnant women are advised to periodically take tests that allow you to determine the presence of infectious diseases and inflammatory processes in the body.

Important!You can not begin treatment until an accurate cause of the indisposition and pathogen is identified with pyelonephritis.

Diagnostics

To identify the disease, you usually need to pass blood and urine tests that will help determine the presence of infection and inflammation. In addition, ultrasound is usually done, sometimes an MRI or CT scan, an x-ray of the lumbar region is required in case of any doubts about the correct diagnosis.

Home Treatment

If the condition is easy enough to start treatment at home, it is advised to immediately go to bed rest, even for the first few days of treatment - a week. What daily intake of fluid is recommended? It all depends on the symptoms, if there is swelling, you should drink no more than two liters per day, if there is no swelling, then two liters and more.

What you can eat with this disease. The diet for acute pyelonephritis restricts exclusively the consumption of salt and proteins, which can negatively affect the function of the affected kidney infection. The rest of the products containing little salt and protein can be eaten with almost no restrictions.

In this disease, antibiotic treatment is usually used, they are prescribed after detection of the pathogen. The course of treatment lasts one to two weeks. Various anti-inflammatory analgesics can also be used, usually Paracetamol and its analogs.

With proper timely treatment, the main symptoms and inflammation disappear within a couple of weeks after the start of therapy. After treatment, you must always follow the rules of prevention and work on strengthening the immune system so that the disease does not recur.

Prevention

First of all, you must always follow the rules of personal hygiene, since most often these diseases begin to develop from the defeat of the urethra. To prevent the development of pyelonephritis downward, it is always timely to treat systemic infectious lesions.

It is also important not to allow hypothermia, especially for children and women, in whom it is the main factor in the onset of the inflammatory process in the bladder, kidneys and other organs of the excretory system.