Head of Nephrology Unit at the Department of Medicine and Therapeutics, University of Ghana, has said that developing an acute kidney injury puts one at risk of future chronic kidney disease.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Ultimate Health on Sunday, Dr. Vincent Boima explained that the kidneys are likely to suffer from two common injuries namely; acute kidney injury and chronic kidney injury.

He said the acute kidney injury “occurs abruptly within a short time in hours to days which leads to accumulation of toxins.”

He added that this comes as a result of short term illnesses like diarrhoea, vomiting, typhoid, heart disease, liver disease, drugs that one may have taken in etc.

He noted that acute injuries are reversible when the problems associated to the injury gets treated or corrected.

He explained that although an acute injury may be treatable, it, however, leaves the individual open to future chronic kidney disease.

“So chronic kidney disease is not the same as acute. So when you have a kidney injury which recovers then it is most likely an acute injury which had recovered,” he said.

He stated that chronic kidney injury on the other hand “is a type of kidney disease that had been going on for some time so your doctors will need your kidney function within the next three months or more to see whether the kidney dysfunction has been persisting for this period. They would also need a scan to look at the appearance of the kidney, the sizes of the kidney – whether blurred or reduced to suggest that it’s a chronic kidney disease.

According to him, if the dysfunction has been persisting for three months period or more, it signifies chronic kidney disease.

He also said, “Perhaps noticing protein in the urine or blood in the urine as well in three months or more is a sign of chronic kidney disease.”

He advised people experiencing these symptoms to see a doctor and have tests performed to determine whether they have kidney disease rather than undergoing one lab test saying they have kidney disease due to the symptoms they are experiencing.