Stem Cell Treatment for Kidney Disorder in Delhi, India
Through the blood, the kidneys filter waste and excess fluid. The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs; there are about one million small filtering structures in each called “nephrons.” When these nephrons are injured or scarred or stressed in some way, they do not work properly and cause acute or chronic kidney injury.The leading causes of kidney damage are high blood pressure and diabetes; persons with these conditions will have an increased risk of damage.
Acute kidney failure can occur derivatively over a number of hours in instances of severe dehydration or from toxic drug injury, urinary tract obstruction, and even autoimmune diseases, like nephritis. Older adults, patients in acute care, those undergoing major surgical procedures, or bone marrow transplants also have an increased risk for these events. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) develops insidiously, often without symptoms, over several months. CKD has been attributed to a number of causes, including but not limited to infections, congenital defects, inflammation or damage, and long-term poorly controlled medical conditions.
Well-established medical treatments of dialysis and kidney transplant exist; however, dialysis does limit a patient’s quality of life. Transplantation depends upon the availability of donor organs, and there are issues with rejection when transplanting organs.
Stem cell therapy can provide more than just treatment; it can repair and regenerate damaged kidney tissue and consequently improve kidney function and decrease the progression of a patient towards end-stage kidney disease.
Currently, as kidney disorders rise in prevalence worldwide, stem cell treatment is being investigated as a more durable and safer option that allows for regenerative processes.
Symptoms of Kidney Disorder
Recognizing the symptoms of kidney disease as early as possible is important because there are significant advances in treatment, including stem cell therapy in Delhi. Knowing the early signs can help avoid complications and allow for the best chance of kidney health.
Some common symptoms to look for include:
- Fatigue and weakness: This occurs because of the buildup of waste or existing anemia.
- Swelling: Due to fluid retention, you may notice puffiness in the feet, ankles, face, and even hands.
- Breath or flavor of ammonia or metallic taste in the mouth: This indicates waste build-up and may result in a disinterest in foods or complete aversion to food altogether.
- Itching: The pruritic sensation is due to a buildup of toxins within the bloodstream.
- Changes in urination: This can take the form of an increase in urination or a complete reduction; urine may be foamy, and you may feel pressure when urinating.
- Back or flank pain: Pain can occur here, as the kidneys are located on the side of the spine.
- Shortness of breath: Fluid accumulation can cause shortness of breath and often presents like conditions of asthma or heart issues.
- Gastrointestinal symptoms: This includes nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.
Kidney disease is typically asymptomatic in the earliest stages; awareness is paramount. The offer of stem cell treatment for kidney disease in India—more specifically in Delhi—is increasingly becoming a common offering of treatment, and every patient will be able to access the regenerative ability to repair kidney tissues, restore kidney function, and reduce the need for dialysis or transplantation, potentially for a lifetime.
Early diagnosis with stem cell treatment allows for complete recovery and restores quality of life for the patients with kidney disease.
Types of Kidney Disorders
The kidneys work like a very strong machine that drains excess fluid and waste products from the bloodstream to ensure the body is running properly. When the kidneys start to break down or if disease sets in, their ability to filter blood is diminished, leading to damage to the kidneys or even renal failure.
Common types of kidney disease include:
- Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD): Kidney damage that exists for a long time reduces the ability to filter blood. If CKD is left unresolved, it can badly lead to end-stage renal disease.
- Fabry Disease: Rare genetic disorder with large lesions that build up in tissues and organs. This disease reduces the oxygen-rich blood supply to the kidneys, which can contribute to deterioration of the kidneys, leading to kidney failure.
Cystinosis:
Excess cystine accumulates in the body and can cause kidney damage as well as damage to other internal organs. Cystinosis can often be diagnosed late in life.
- Glomerulonephritis: The tiny filters in the kidneys, glomeruli, may be damaged, reducing the amount of waste removed, which can gradually lead to kidney failure.
- Lupus Nephritis: An autoimmune condition where the kidneys and other organs are damaged by the body’s own immune system. There is no cure; however, treatment, including stem cell therapy, reduces disease, which creates a prolonged time for the cycle of the disease.
- IgA Nephropathy: Proteins from the immune system accrued in the kidneys, causing inflammation and damage to the glomeruli (filters); generally, the patient does not experience symptoms; however, by that time, the damage to the kidneys is now significant.
There are many other less common causes of kidney disease, but now patients have some hope, and possibly in the future, on top of management, there may even be restoration of function with new and exciting developments, i.e., stem cell therapies.
Causes of Kidney Disorder
Kidney failure can occur due to various underlying conditions, and the specific cause may affect what kind of kidneys fail and how badly they fail. People at the highest risk for kidney failure often have one or more contributing factors associated with blood flow, blockage of urine outflow, or other systemic diseases.
There are 3 major causes of kidney failure:
1. Reduced blood flow to the kidneys
A major cause of kidney failure can be loss of blood supply, where blood flow suddenly decreases. This can occur from heart attack, heart disease, liver scarring or liver death, severe burns, dehydration, allergic reactions, or life-threatening infections, like sepsis. High blood pressure and some anti-inflammatory drugs may also result in decreased blood flow to the kidneys.
2. Blockage of urine elimination
Kidneys begin to fail when they cannot remove urine. This allows toxins to build up and the urine to overflow past its limit. Blockage may occur from cancers like prostate, colon, cervical, or bladder tumors, for example. Other conditions include kidney stones, enlarged prostate, blood clots, or nerve damage, which can all impact urine outflow.
3. Other Causes
Additional contributing factors to kidney failure can include blood clots blocking circulation to or around the kidneys, chronic infections, heavy metal poisoning, abusing drugs or alcohol, vasculitis, lupus, glomerulonephritis, hemolytic uremic syndrome, or multiple myeloma. Factors including autoimmune diseases like scleroderma and TTP, using a combination of potentially harmful chemotherapy drugs, imaging dyes, and some antibiotics, as well as unmanaged or poorly managed diabetes, etc.
Diagnosis of Kidney Disorder
Kidney disease can be noted by laboratory assessments and from the symptoms. Increased blood levels of creatinine and urea nitrogen (plus signs of protein in your urine) suggest kidney disease. If you have diabetes, you should have a yearly urine test for microalbumin, small amounts of protein that do not show up on a standard urine protein test.
As a patient, you should expect to answer questions about any prior kidney issues. Your physician will also want to know of any family history of renal disease and what type of medicines you take, including over-the-counter medications or nutritional supplements. Your physician will perform additional testing to look at your kidneys. This could include an ultrasound or CT scan. Ultrasound and CT scans allow your physician to obtain the size of your kidneys, estimate the vascularity of blood supply to kidneys, and see if there are obstructions affecting your urinary flow. In some cases your physician will sample a small piece of kidney tissue (biopsy) to ascertain what led to your kidney disease.
Most of the time kidney failure is a slowly progressive disease. Usually if you have kidney failure, at this point an individual does not have major nephron destruction; significantly so in the earlier stages, there are no major signs or symptoms that would tell the patient they have profound kidney disease. However, there is now stem cell therapy that may regenerate parts of the kidney. There are no definitive studies on stem cells for patients with kidney failure, but the good news is that there may be hope, and we need to wait to see how effective or safe these therapies may be in helping our patients with chronic renal disease and assisting in slowing this disease in a proactive manner.
Treatment of Kidney Disorder
Recent studies have shown that MSCs can repair the myelin of the nervous system, decreasing symptoms and increasing life expectancy. Steroids and other disease-modifying drugs cannot cover all symptoms;designed to manage some specific symptoms. Again, the issue of critical side effects of drugs is there. With MSC treatment, there is no such concern.
FAQs
1. How does stem cell therapy help in kidney disorders?
Stem cell therapy promotes repair and regeneration of the damaged kidney tissue to enhance kidney function and slow the progression to end-stage kidney disease.
2. Who can be treated with stem cell therapy for kidney disease?
People with chronic kidney disease (CKD) and acute kidney injury, as well as those suffering from various kidney diseases (diseases with kidney injury such as lupus nephritis, IgA nephropathy, and diabetic nephropathy), can also usually be treated with stem cell therapy.
3. Why choose Delhi for stem cell kidney disease therapy?
Delhi ranks high in India for its advances in regenerative medicine. We provide state-of-the-art stem cell therapy for an affordable cost that is far below the costs in developed nations, with many established and trained specialists.
4. Is stem cell therapy safer than dialysis or transplant?
Unlike dialysis, which manages symptoms, and transplant, which is dependent on an organ donor and at risk of rejection, stem cell therapy is more natural and heals the kidney, and it is long-lasting with substantially fewer complications.