Chronic kidney failure is the third leading cause of death in an elderly dog. Therefore, it is essential to know the first signs to prevent its appearance. Like kidney stones, it is a disease that affects the urinary system.
Today I want to talk about a very subtle and treacherous disease, because it is difficult to recognize. Symptoms are very clearly manifested, only when the situation is irreversible, while at first they can be confused with diabetes, that is why it is so important to try to prevent it, carrying out the controls that we will mention below.
Chronic kidney failure in the dog
The kidney is a fantastic organ that has four main functions:
Excretory- elimination of waste substances destined to produce urine from the blood;
Endocrine: produces different hormones
Regulation of water and salt balance body and vitamin D metabolism
Regulation of osmotic pressure in blood and tissues.
In short, these decide how much water and solutes (sodium, potassium, calcium, phosphates, proteins and others) should remain inside the body, causing more or less concentration of urine.
The nephron itself is composed of different parts (glomerulus, proximal tubule, loop of Henle, and distal tubule) with different functions of filtration, regulation, and absorption.
The kidney is an extraordinarily efficient organ, so much so that if one nephron does not work perfectly, because it is damaged, the other kidney works immediately more to compensate and increases in size. But long-term overwork damages it and therefore creates a chain reaction that involves an increasing number of nephrons, this being where our dog's disease begins.
Chronic kidney disease manifests itself only when the body is no longer able to compensate for the loss of functionality, being when the damage is already irreversible and we can only try to provide a solution that mitigates the situation.
Because it is so important to realize before this stage something is wrong! If you do, we can still make this disease in the dog not go away.
Chronic kidney failure in dogs, what does it consist of?
Chronic kidney failure is defined as a clinical form that occurs when the kidneys are no longer able to maintain their functions regulatory, the possible consequence being uremia, a toxic syndrome caused by physiological and metabolic changes resulting from kidney failure.
It is important to remember this, because in the case of chronic kidney failure, it is possible to successfully carry out medical treatment; in uremia, the only viable treatment is to replace hemodialysis or kidney transplantation.
Types of chronic kidney failure
Acute: with a sudden onset, it is life threatening or reversible, but if you can diagnose it in time, this disease can be eliminated.
Chronicle: when a progressive loss of nephrons and persists for prolonged periods (months or years), with irreversibility of the injury.
The functional unit of the kidney, the nephron, is first destroyed and then infiltrated by inflammatory cells and finally replaced by scar tissue. Kidney damage can gradually become chronic and progressively invades the entire organ.
Chronic kidney failure it is a progressive disease characterized by the loss of function of more than 75% of nephrons.
Causes of chronic kidney failure in dogs
The causes can be:
- Neoplasms
- Autoimmune diseases
- Protozoal diseases (leptospirosis and leishmaniasis)
- Nephrotoxic substances (i.e. toxic to kidneys) taken over long periods
- Infectious and / or inflammatory processes (pyometra)
- Urinary flow obstruction (urinary blockage),
- Kidney stones
- Congenital causes (kidney hypoplasia / dysplasia in Boxer)
Often, however, the triggering cause cannot be highlighted because it is not possible to understand what the initial damage can actually be attributed to. Therefore, it is not so important to understand which kidney disease is caused by failure.
In case you see that your dog is suffering or you notice it strange, remember that you should go to the vet as soon as possibleOnly through tests will be able to tell us if our dog has chronic kidney failure.