10 common CKD symptoms

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What are 10 symptoms of chronic kidney disease?

Here they are.

Urinary symptoms
High blood pressure
Shortness of breath and ankle swelling (red flag symptoms) – you need to see a doctor soon
Tiredness
Pain
Muscle weakness
Not being hungry
Itching
Poor concentration and sleeping
Other (non-specific) – including a feeling of deep cold, leg cramps and restless legs.

This could be CKD (or a bad day!)

Why is it hard to tell you have CKD?

It is notoriously difficult to know you if have chronic kidney disease (CKD), especially in its early stages. When the CKD is mild and the kidney function ‘OK’ – well, good enough; e.g. CKD 1-3 – you can have no symptoms. Or, if you have some, there are reasons you ignore them:

The body can cope with early CKD, with some reduced kidney function. So it can maintain a balance for quite a while when you are in the early stages, leading to little/no symptoms
Vague symptoms. Even if you do have symptoms, they can be quite vague (e.g. tiredness, or off food) and you may link them with other things (rather than problems with your kidneys) – e.g. you are fed up with something else, working too hard, children are a handful etc
Other diseases. Those symptoms, being vague, are common to other chronic diseases (heart failure, anaemia etc). So the wrong diagnosis is made. Or you may have both (e.g. CKD can cause anaemia) and the doctors focus on the ‘wrong’ disease (the anaemia).

So at this stage, CKD is usually only picked up on routine blood tests for another condition, or because you have new vague symptoms.

“The golden rule with kidneys and possible CKD is
.. if in doubt, have a blood test.”

Summary

We have described the 10 common CKD symptoms. But there are often none. And the diagnosis is made either as part of blood tests looking for another condition, or because you have new persistent vague symptoms. If in doubt, have a blood test.

Other resources

10 CKD symptoms (and what causes them) (longer article)

Last Reviewed on 26 June 2024