Lower Back Pain and Kidney

Most of the time the pain in the back is one of the common sicknesses of people nowadays. It may be attributed to numerous factors including weak lower back muscles and ligaments, stress, poor posture, obesity, and aging. It usually patches up within 4 weeks through bed rest.

However, prolonged back pain can indicate presence of disease. People immediately equate kidneys to lower back pain when they cannot point out any other etiology. Clenching your fists and placing them over the pelvis would represent the location of the kidneys on low back.  However on the contrary, the kidneys are not directly located on the lower back. Rather, it is situated against the dorsal body wall in a retroperitoneal position. Why then is it considered kidney low back pain? The pain caused by the infection of the kidneys radiates to the lower trunk and causes kidney lower back pain.

Lower back kidney pain is a clinical manifestation of pyelonephritis which is the inflammation of the renal pelvis. Other symptoms are fever, chills, vomiting, headache, malaise, and painful urination. Lower back kidney pain is an excruciating types of pain felt because it is not easily relieved by bed rest. If one has already had enough of feeling that lower back kidney pain, the definitive sign that it the person has urinary tract infection is through urine culture, colony counts, and cellular studies. Medical management of diseases concerning kidney lower back pain involves pharmacological therapy and patient education. Most experts prescribe withholding antibiotic treatments until symptoms develop.

Some patients I have encountered who have complained of lower back kidney pain do experience most of the other symptoms stated above. Some of them even stated that low kidney pain had affected their sleeping patterns and increased the amounts of stress and fatigue they felt. Lower back kidney pain should be a basis of concern but it can heal speedily as long as the patient carries out the required regimen. Failure to comply with the medication (antibiotics) only results to superinfection and does not resolve the symptom of lower back kidney pain. It could lead to a graver type of infectivity in the upper respiratory tract – chronic pyelonephritis that can result to end stage renal disease (ESRD). Management of the said condition may require hospitalization or at an out – patient setting. To diminish the lower back kidney pain, the patient is advised to take in more water per day to dilute the urine. Patient instruction is necessary to consider and is focused not only on diminishing the acute pain of the lower kidney back but the prevention of UTI by consuming adequate fluids, emptying the bladder regularly, and performing proper perineal hygiene.

Lower kidney back pain must be dealt with immediately to counteract the adverse effects that could happen if not treated accordingly. The kidneys have a way of alerting the person on what’s occurring inside the body, one just has to listen.