When creatinine level is very high, your doctor may suggest you dialysis. Is high creatinine level a decisive factor of dialysis? Of course not. After reading this article, you will know when you should start dialysis.

The fact proves that when you should start dialysis depends on yourself. For some patients, they start dialysis when their creatinine level is over 500 umol/L, while for some patients, they have not started dialysis when their creatinine is higher than 3000.

However, this is not a good phenomenon. Starting dialysis too early is not helpful for you to preserve your kidney function, while starting dialysis too later may cause a lot of severe complications to threaten your life.

Is creatinine level not equal to kidney function?

Creatinine is a metabolic product of body. Under normal circumstance, it is passed out of body by kidneys. With the decline of kidney function, creatinine builds up in body. In the daily, it is often used as an index of kidney function, but it just reflects kidney function indirectly, while GFR is an direct index of blood flow through kidneys. Therefore, creatinine level can only be used to measure whether your disease is stable or not. If you want to decide whether you should start dialysis, you should know your GFR.

Here are some conditions you should meet when you start dialysis.

1. GFR<5

2. GFR ranges from 5 to 10, and you have heart failure, high blood potassium and acidosis.

Note: GFR 155≈creatinine 707

Though when your creatinine level reaches 700, you still have time to consider whether you should start dialysis or not, but the time is short. If you do not do any treatment in this stage, your GFR will decrease 3-5 points per year. That is to say, you have one year to consider the dialysis.

At last, I have to say that the reason why some people start dialysis with creatinine 500 may be that they have complications. And it may also because that your doctor do not have better treatment plan for the disease. The reason why some people have not started dialysis with creatinine 3000 is that creatinine itself does not have so much poison.

When should you start dialysis? Now you have a clear mind. For more information on dialysis and alternative treatment, please leave a message below or contact online doctor.