Kidney Disease is without symptoms!
Kidney Disease is without symptoms! Yes, it is without symptoms until it is too late. What many people refer to as symptoms are actually complications of the disease. Kofi (not his real name) recountered how he started to feel sick but how no one thought he could be developing kidney disease until it was too late.
During an exclusive interaction with him at one of the country’s tertiary institutions, he recounted how he used to feel sick when he was a senior high school student, and in the second year.
According to him “I blame the people at the hospital there, several times I would go to the hospital with very high blood pressure, but there said there was nothing wrong with me. Sometimes, they would just give me malaria treatment and then I would go home”
Now, Kofi has kidney failure, what Doctors refer to as end stage renal disease and has to be attending three sessions of dialysis each week to stay healthy.
Commenting on the issue, Professor Elliot Koranteng Tannor, a Professor of Medicine and Consultant Nephrologist at the Renal Clinc at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital said, “This is how it is”
A person who comes with kidney failure may have been treated for malaria for up to three times.
Because many people don’t know that the disease doesn’t show symptoms early, caregivers don’t suspect it on time, the patients themselves too don’t think of checking their kidneys, so before they get here, they might gotten to an advanced stage.
This is the sad aspect of people living with kidney disease in Ghana
As the world kidney day approaches, the Kidney Health International has intensified public health education on prevention strategies to communities, churches and organized groups across the length and breath of the country with the over 500 trained volunteers.
It is estimated that in the month of March, thousands of people will get to hear about prevention of kidney disease. The aim is to ensure that as many people as possible get to know about early warning signs so they do not report to the hospital at an advanced stage.
The Kidney Health International would climax this year’s program with a massive screening program at the Brofoyedu community park where over 500 people are expected to take part in the screening program.