Renal Artery Stenosis

[kitt]

Hello i am Knew, I was diagnosised with renal artery stenosis of the left renal artery, 80 percent blocked, the interventional radiologist put a non medicaded stent in and told me to come back in 3 months, also have Iliac stenosis, He said that my renal artery will restenosis he told me it is a progressive disease. My question is this true and will i loss my kidney any time soon? Will it happen to my right kidney? I am scared and need to know if anyone out there has the same? I am 47yrs old and live in New Jersey. Thank you for you surport forum. Kitt :(

[Beth Witten MSW ACSW]

Renal artery stenosis can cause kidney failure, but often this is because it isn't found in time, if you have blockages in arteries to both kidneys or you have such severe high blood pressure that it damages your kidneys.

Here's an article from MedlinePlus, a government website, that describes renal artery stenosis, including treatments for it.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001273.htm

If you have kidney damage and you have high blood pressure, it's possible that the high blood pressure could cause more kidney damage. Hopefully stenting the renal artery will get better blood flow to your kidney. Besides cleaning the blood and sending toxins out in urine, the kidney helps control blood pressure. If your blood pressure is still high, do your best to control it by not smoking, exercising, reducing stress through relaxation, avoiding medications that can affect kidneys, and taking blood pressure medicines.

I'm sure it's frightening to find out that you have a condition that could have damaged your kidneys. You might want to look at some of the information on another website that Medical Education Institute administers http://www.kidneyschool.org -- another website that Medical Education Institute administers. This is an interactive modular based learning system. Feel free to read the topics that are interesting to you now and check back later if you want to learn about other topics.

If you're not seeing a nephrologist that you trust, I'd recommend that you find one. Find out what your kidney function is now by asking what your GFR (glomerular filtration rate) is. GFR results let you know what percentage of kidney function you have. Protecting your kidneys from damage should be priority and nephrologists are the specialists that know the most about how to protect kidneys and treat kidney disease.

[kitt]

thank you for your help