Kidney Failure Due to an Electrolyte Imbalance

Electrolytes are substances in the body that help to conduct electrical impulses. Some common electrolytes are salt, potassium, calcium and sodium bicarbonate. Electrolyte imbalance is among one of the most common causes of kidney failure. Understanding how an electrolyte imbalance can occur and how it can be rectified can help prevent kidney failure.

Function

• The job of electrolytes in the body is to keep a proper balance of fluid in and outside of cell walls. This balance is essential to almost every biochemical reaction throughout the body, from energy generation to muscle contraction. The kidneys' role in the body is to filter out toxins and wastes from the body.

Cause

• Electrolytes most commonly become unbalanced as the result of dehydration. When a person loses more fluids than they take in, they also lose essential electrolytes. That leaves their bodies at a dangerous deficit. While mild and even moderate dehydration don't typically result in any real damage to the body, severe dehydration, or the loss of 10 percent of more of the body's fluids, can be life threatening. One of the first organs to fail will be the kidneys.

Result

• An electrolyte imbalance affects the kidneys' ability to filter out waste products. Acute renal failure, or sudden-onset kidney failure caused by a specific event or stimuli, can very quickly become life threatening. Depending on how long the failure is allowed to continue, the kidneys may or may not be able to regain full function. Chronic renal failure is long-term and progressive kidney failure, either due to acute renal failure or another illness like diabetes, over time reduces the kidneys' ability to do their jobs effectively. Both types of kidney failure can further affect the kidneys' ability to maintain electrolyte homeostasis.

Treatment

• Even if a patient is given fluids with electrolytes to restore the electrolyte balance, without proper monitoring and supplementation of electrolytes, an imbalance is likely to recur. Unless acute kidney failure is mild and no long-term damage to the kidneys is done, kidney failure is a deadly, progressive disease. One of the hallmarks of its treatment is monitoring electrolyte balances in the body and giving patients electrolytes as needed to maintain the necessary balance, since their kidneys are no longer able to maintain that balance on their own.

Physical Changes

• Patients with kidney failure may experience urine that is not as concentrated, because the kidneys can no longer put a large amount of toxins in a small amount of urea. This means that urinary volume and variations in water intake will no longer be linked to each other. As the body needs to excrete more urine to get rid of the same levels of toxins previously excreted in small amounts of urine, dehydration can easily occur, further upsetting the body's electrolyte balance.