Kidney disease is a problem that affects the kidneys from properly functioning.  At first the symptoms of kidney disease can be very subtle and hard to detect or diagnose.  If your kidney disease goes untreated, you can greatly affect your quality of life.  Kidney disease can also later attack other organs, and cause heart failure or decrease your muscle function.

Some of the symptoms of kidney infection includes:

• Blood in urine, dark smelly urine or frothy/foamy urine.
• Frequent need to urinate at night
• Inability to get relief from bladder pressure or urge to urinate
• Swelling in ankles or face
• Cold hands and feet
• Lack of energy and shortness of breath
• Itchy skin
• Metallic taste in mouth
• Nausea and vomiting
• Forgetfulness
• Aches and pains in back or side
• Anaemia, lack of red blood cells needed to carry oxygen around body

Proper kidney function is a must for a healthy lifestyles.  Although we can live quite well with only one kidney, some lifestyle changes need to be made, and without kidney function at all, our bodies will die.  The kidneys act as the filtration system of our body.  The kidneys filter our waste by products, fluids, maintain a proper balance of salts and acids, and also produce hormones.  Many illnesses can affect the kidneys, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and nephritis or inflammation of the kidney, and people who are obese, smoke or over 50 years of age are also more at risk.