Nephrotic Syndrome with AKI (acute kidney injury)

Ask Our Experts
1

Hi all,

Just trying to eat some hard and painful information the doctors gave us inside a hospital in Sydney.

My Mrs (27yO) started with some atypical change on her Weight, swollen extremities and following with loss of urine. We went to emergency department straight away, which at that time they gave her a dose of Albium as she was losing way too much protein in her urine. As an inpatient in the hospital they have diagnosed her with nephrotic syndrome.
Due to her health conditions they decided to put her on a dialysis machine. After pretty much aroun 15 sessions in the machine she was starting to get better with prednisone (60mg a day) to recover her kidneys functionality.
Now after three month from that day (still on 5mg/day) she started to feel the same kind of symptoms with notorios increase of weight (RELAPSE). went to hospital again and they have decide to increase her dose to 60mg/day and send her home like that.
Here are my questions to the experts as I’ve been trying to read all related with this kind of pathology.

  • would she recover from that situation or is it a long term disease.?
  • if there is a relapse it also means that she would probably have to be on dialysis again?
  • what are the chances of recovering? (27yO women)
  • is she gonna need a new kidney?

I would like to learn more about this kind of disease. Try to find a way of helping her with something that would be helpful for her health. Like having 10mins walk, massages, herbal teas. I would love to have my Mrs back in healthy conditions.

Thanks
Juan

2

There is an organization called NephCure that has information on nephrotic syndrome. There are multiple causes. A common cause is a condition called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). There are treatments for nephrotic syndrome, including use of certain categories of blood pressure meds (ACE inhibitors or ARBs), dietary changes, etc. If nephrotic syndrome can’t be controlled, it can lead to permanent kidney damage, the need for dialysis or kidney transplant. If the cause of nephrotic syndrome is FSGS, that condition can recur in a transplanted kidney.

There are many other sources of information about nephrotic syndrome. Here are a couple of them:

3

She was diagnosed with MCD, sorry for skipping that part. They never said why this condition was presented in her. It’s just a weird and complicated disease.

4

I’m a social worker, not a doctor and would suggest that you speak with her doctor. This fact sheet says that Minimal Change Disease can be caused by taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, tumors, allergies, or virus infections. MCD is treated with steroids (which was how she was treated). Recurrences can be treated the same way if they recur. The fact sheet says that kidney failure from MCD is rare.