Diabetes is known to cause severe kidney damage due to years of neglect of high blood glucose levels. The proper term for kidney damage t hat is caused by diabetes is called “diabetic nephropathy”.
Unfortunately, many people do not pay attention to the early warning signs of kidney damage. For example, diabetics can have a simple urine test that looks for findings of microalbuminuria. A person with healthy kidneys will only allow a small amount of albumin (protein in blood) to enter into the urine. Damage kidneys that are the result of nephropathy cannot prevent much of the albumin from entering the urine, thereby increasing its levels, resulting in microalbuminuria.
However, these tests may not always find early warning signs of kidney disease. Even if your doctor is testing for diabetic nephropathy, and you are indeed in the early stages of kidney disease, a test may still come back negative because the amounts of albumin within your urine can be so small that it will not flag a positive result. Your doctor should then initiate a more sensitive test for microalbuminuria which has the technology to locate even the smallest amounts of albumin in the urine.
This test is best done if samples of your urine is taken over a prolonged period of time. This is due to the fact that false positive tests can be triggered by such activities as exercise. However, if an abnormally high amount of albumin is found during this second, more sophisticated test, than a second test will be initiated.
If the second test also shows that the levels of albumin is high, then you and your doctor can proceed to start taking preventative measures towards the protection of your kidneys. Unfortunately, if you have tested positive for macroalbuminuria than the disease cannot be stopped. It can be slowed down with proper treatment, however.
Type 1 diabetics who have had their disease for five years or more should get checked for macroalbuminuria. This does not mean that you should not get checked if it's been under five years, but studies show that macroalbuminuria hits type 1 diabetics typically after five years of the onset of their diabetes. And anyone who has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should get checked immediately.
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