How Long Do You Live with PKD

2014-08-22 08:49

PKD is life-threatening, so we need to know how long we can live after the diagnosis of it so that we can make some preparation in advance.

How does PKD affect us?

PKD (Polycystic Kidney Disease) actually is not life-threatening if it can be controlled in early stage. It is an illness that can cause lots of cysts in kidney. These cysts are harmless when they are in small size, but the problem is cysts in PKD enlarge over time. When they become very large, they will oppress surrounding kidney tissues, which can cause decline of kidney function.

Kidney is a very important organ that is in charge of purifying blood, producing urine, maintaining electrolyte balance and secreting hormone. With the enlargement and increase of kidney cyst, kidneys fail to work as well as they did before. Under such a condition, various symptoms will appear.

Kidney takes charge of filtering blood, so when kidney function is impaired due to PKD, toxins produced in our body will build up in the blood. These toxic substance may damage any part of patient’s body like heart and nerve system. Therefore, life is threatened severely with development of PKD.

How long do you live with PKD?

PKD is not life-threatening with PKD in early stage. In general, it takes decades for PKD to progress to end stage if symptoms like high blood pressure and proteinuria can be brought under control.

Besides, dialysis is needed when damaged kidney can not help to maintain the normal life. With dialysis, patients can live as long as 20 years at most and also they may die of severe complications of dialysis within several weeks.

It is hard to tell the exact answer about how long can a PKD patient live, but one thing we sure is with effective treatment, PKD can be stopped from developing to kidney failure. As long as final stage of PKD is prevented, patients’ life span and life expectancy are improved greatly.

Leave your problems here and you will get nephrologists' advice with free of charge!