Questions: Hello, doctor! I am a patient with FSGS and I do need some help. Could you give me some suggestion? My blood test shows that the creatinine level is 7.2mg/dl. Should I do dialysis?

Answers: I received your email yesterday. Here is my suggestions. I hope this could do you some favors. If you have any doubts, you can send back to renal-disease@hotmail.com and I will give you an explanation.

Since your creatinine level has reached 7.2, your kidney function must have been damaged. Creatinien is the by-product of muscle and it should be filtered out by kidneys. The creatinine level is an indicator of kidney function to some extent. Becasue of the great compensatory ability of kidneys, the creatinine level will not go up unless half of the kidney function loses. The normal creatinine level is 0.5-1.2mg/dl. Apparently, creatinine 7.2 is much higher than the normal range. Dialysis is used to help kidney discharge some of the waste products in blood and relieve some symptoms. It is effecitve to high creatinine level. But it is hard to say whether you should do dialysis or not. This is becasue high creatinine level does not always mean that you need dialysis. Then on what conditions does dialysis needed? If the creatinine level has contributed some symptoms, such as sleepiness, fatigue, you can consider dialysis or if you are troubled by other symptoms, like nausea, vomit, itchy skin, muscle cramp, heart failure, etc, dilaysis is needed. What is your condition? Do you have obvious symptoms?

If you do not have obvious symptoms, diaysis can be delayed. But if you have, you should have a talk with your doctor. Maybe you need immediate diaysis.

Is my suggestion about should you do dialysis with FSGS and creatinine 7.2 helpful? If you still have follow-up questions, you can send me back. Best wishes!