Living with kidney disease

If you have one kidney removed, provided the other is working normally, you will suffer no ill effects. One kidney is enough to filter your blood to keep it clean and healthy.

It is sensible, though, to take care of your remaining kidney. Firstly, if you smoke, you really should try to stop. Smoking has been linked to many cancers, including kidney cancer. Try to encourage those around you to stop too - for the sake of their own health, as well as yours. Giving up smoking can be very difficult, especially if you have smoked for many years. You will need a lot of will power and support from your friends and family but it will be worth it. There is information about how to stop and who to contact for support on our News and Resources website.

A high protein diet has been linked to kidney disease, including cancer. To eat more healthily, try to increase your intake of fresh fruit and vegetables and not eat so much protein. Protein containing foods include

• Meat and fish
• Eggs
• Cheese, butter and milk
• Beans and lentils

As you can see, most protein-rich foods are also rich in animal fats. So eating a diet lower in protein may help you to maintain a healthy weight too. Try to cut down on the amount of salt you add to your food. A high salt intake puts a strain on the kidneys (it is not good for your heart either).

Some people try high doses of vitamins to try to treat their cancer or stop it coming back. There is no evidence that this works. In fact, with kidney cancer, you could do more harm than good. Large doses of vitamin C could damage your remaining kidney, or cause kidney stones, which are very painful.

If you like to have the occasional alcoholic drink, there is no reason why you should not continue to have a glass of wine or beer. But heavy drinking will cause kidney damage eventually, and is really not sensible if you only have one working kidney.

There is more about information about healthy eating on Cancer Research UK's News and Resources website.

Rarely, people do get cancer in both kidneys. Once you have had cancer in one kidney, there is about a 1 in 20 chance (5%) of getting cancer in the other kidney.

It is possible to have both kidneys removed if necessary. But your surgeon will try to remove only the tumours from the kidneys. The surgeon will try to leave enough working kidney tissue to keep you healthy.

If you have both kidneys completely removed, you will not make any urine. You will have to have kidney dialysis. This is just a way of getting rid of waste products and excess water that would be filtered out of your blood if your kidneys were working. There are 2 different types of kidney dialysis

• Filtering the blood through a kidney dialysis machine
• Continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD)

The kidney machine method is the one you are most likely to have heard of. It has to be done about 3 times a week to keep the blood healthy. To have dialysis, you have 2 needles put into your arm. One carries blood to the machine, where it is cleaned and excess water is removed. The other needle carries the cleaned blood back to your body. Most people have to travel to a dialysis centre 3 times a week to have this treatment. The dialysis itself takes up to 6 hours or so. As you can see, having this treatment is time consuming. It will take up quite a bit of your time every week.

CAPD is a more recent invention. You manage this type of dialysis on your own at home every day. A tube (catheter) is permanently placed into your tummy (abdomen). Every day, you attach a bag of fluid to this tube and run it into your abdomen. Then, you leave the fluid inside you for several hours. While it is in there, the fluid collects the waste products and extra water that you would normally get rid of in your urine. After a set time, you drain the fluid out again, together with the waste products and extra water, and put another clean bag of fluid in. An advantage of this type of dialysis is that you can manage it yourself at home. So it is easier to carry on with your usual daily routine. But you can get infections inside your abdomen from the tube. You have to be extremely careful about hygiene when you are changing bags. But however careful you are, you will almost certainly get the odd infection if you are managing this type of dialysis for any length of time.

Neither of these types of dialysis are trouble-free. But they do work and mean you can lead a more or less normal life without a working kidney. You have to stick to a special diet that is low in protein, salt and potassium. And you have to keep a very close check on your fluid intake. Without your kidneys to filter out extra water, you can easily become overloaded with fluid. That can cause heart or lung problems.

So, life without a kidney is not entirely straightforward. But it can be done and thousands of people do manage very well.

If you are facing life without either kidney, why not contact one of the organisations on our kidney cancer organisations page. You can also contact our cancer information nurses. They would be happy to help.