Patients With Chronic Kidney Disease Have Dietary Taboos On Hot Days, And Blindly Controlling Water Can Be Very Harmful

The unbearably hot summer may mean that for people of average means, their clothes are soaked with sweat and they have to rely on air conditioning to survive. However, for patients with chronic kidney disease, this is a time when they must be extremely vigilant.

You may think that if it’s hot, drink more water and get more rest, and you’ll be fine?

However, for those friends whose kidney function has been damaged, the physiological changes brought about by high temperature are like a silent test. As long as you are not careful, it is very likely to cause acute kidney injury, causing years of careful maintenance to be in vain.

Today, we will talk about some of the "life and death calamities" that kidney friends must avoid during the hot summer season. This knowledge may help you spend this summer smoothly and safely.

The first taboo: blindly "control water" leading to dehydration

Many kidney patients are familiar with the doctor’s advice: limit drinking water to prevent edema and heart failure .

This has led many people to develop the habit of "not drinking too much even if they are thirsty".

But on days with temperatures frequently reaching 40°C, this kind of inertial thinking is extremely dangerous.

The body's "blood purification factory" – the kidneys – maintains normal operation, which requires adequate blood flow as support to maintain it.

When you sweat a lot in high temperatures, if you don't replenish the water immediately, your body will fall into a state of dehydration.

The blood becomes thicker, and the amount of blood flowing through the kidneys decreases sharply. This is like forcing a factory to start work under a power outage, and the final result will definitely be damage to the machinery.

Medical research shows that under extreme high temperatures, dehydration in the body can cause the environment in the kidneys to enter a state of ischemia and hypoxia, which can easily lead to acute tubular necrosis.

In healthy people, it may be just a heat stroke, but for patients with kidney disease, it is very likely to be an acute renal failure attack that can cause fatal consequences.

Therefore, the hydration strategy in summer must be adjusted, and the key lies in "fine" rather than "forbidden".

The second taboo: Adjusting antihypertensive drugs without authorization

In summer, the human body's blood vessels will naturally expand to help the body dissipate heat, and this situation often causes blood pressure to drop to a certain extent.

Some kidney patients with high blood pressure felt happy when they saw the number on the blood pressure monitor drop, and even stopped taking the medicine themselves.

This is exactly how tragedy often begins.

A sudden and sharp drop in blood pressure will lead to insufficient perfusion pressure in the kidneys. For diseased kidneys that already rely on a certain amount of pressure to achieve filtration function, this will undoubtedly make the bad situation worse.

Hypotension has the possibility of inducing a disease, which is renal failure. For patients who rely on arteriovenous fistulas for hemodialysis, it is also the direct cause of fistula thrombosis and blockage.

Clinically, whenever summer comes, there will always be some patients who suffer from diarrhea and dehydration, which in turn leads to low blood pressure, eventually causing the internal fistula to lose function and forcing emergency surgery.

Remember, for any adjustment to the medication regimen, detailed blood pressure records must be kept and the decision must be made by the attending physician. You must never make the decision on your own.

The third taboo: being greedy for cold drinks and being unclean can lead to infection.

A piece of iced watermelon or a cold dish that has been left overnight may be regarded as a delicious delicacy to relieve the heat in the summer. However, for people with kidney disease, it may be a dangerous situation that is hidden and difficult to detect.

The key link is between "infection" and " electrolyte imbalance ".

In summer, food is prone to spoilage and breeds bacteria. The immunity of patients with kidney disease is relatively low. Once acute gastroenteritis occurs, vomiting and diarrhea will directly lead to a large loss of body fluids and electrolyte imbalance.

What’s even more dangerous is that many summer fruits, such as watermelons and bananas, are “potassium-rich.”

If a patient with kidney disease has difficulty urinating, the kidney's ability to excrete potassium will be reduced. If a large amount of high-potassium food is consumed in a short period of time, the concentration of potassium ions in the blood will rise rapidly, causing hyperkalemia.

This is a medical emergency that can lead to cardiac arrest and is by no means alarmist.

Therefore, “the entrance must be clean” is the iron rule for kidney patients’ summer diet.

Summer Survival Guide for Kidney Friends: Hydration, Monitoring and Lifestyle

In the face of high temperatures, how should patients with kidney disease respond scientifically?

The core principles can be summarized in three sentences: hydration must be precise, monitoring must be frequent, and the entrance must be clean.

When it comes to replenishing water, you must not wait until you are very thirsty and unbearable before drinking water, because by that time, your body is already in a state of dehydration.

It is recommended to adopt a "small amount, many times" strategy.

If you have edema, you need to set a daily upper limit of water drinking under the guidance of your doctor; if there is no edema, you must add a little more than usual when you sweat a lot.

The water here refers to warm water , rather than sugary drinks or strong tea.

about monitor , it is best to have a weight scale and a blood pressure monitor at home.

First, put on the same clothes every morning after defecation, and then weigh yourself. Once you find that your weight fluctuates throughout the day and exceeds 1 kilogram, then this situation is probably not a sign of obesity, but a signal of water retention or edema.

If your blood pressure is significantly lower than the usual baseline value, for example, from 130 divided by 80 millimeters of mercury to 100 divided by 60 millimeters of mercury, don't hesitate to contact your doctor immediately.

about Life For details, try to avoid going out during high temperature hours at noon.

Do not expose yourself to the sun or engage in strenuous exercise for the so-called "sweating and detoxification".

When using air conditioners, the temperature should not be too low. It is more appropriate to maintain it at around 26°C to prevent colds caused by large temperature differences.

Once you have symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, palpitation, or a sudden and significant decrease in urine output, or the urine is as dark as strong tea, you should go to the doctor immediately to check your kidney function.

In summer, your kidneys are silently bearing extra burden.

It doesn't scream pain, it just sends an alarm with changes in indicators.

I hope that everyone with the same kidney existence form can give their body a deeper respect and care, so that these seemingly unobvious points of attention can be implemented into practice.

A safe summer starts with knowing these risks.

If there are kidney disease patients around you who need care, then you might as well share this reminder with them. Sometimes, the more you know about the situation, the less risk you will have.