11 Ways Kidney Disease can Affect Your Skin

SKIN by erlinda karyadi

Kidneys are two bean shaped organs located below ribcage.

They remove wastes, acids produced by cells, and extra fluid from our body.

Maintain a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium in our blood.

When your kidney damage for a long period, it’s called Chronic Kidney Disease. As the disease progresses, patient may develop one or more skin diseases.

  1. Extremely dry skin
  • Skin becomes rough, scaly, and cracks easily.
  • Due to dehydration of the stratum corneum and reduced sebum and sweat production

2. Itchy skin

  • Common symptom among patients with end-stage kidney disease.
  • Due to elevated ureum, altered balance of opioid receptors, and release of pruritogens and histamine.

3. Scratch marks and scratching

  • Raw, bleeding skin or sores.
  • Thick, leathery skin.
  • Firm, very itchy bumps.

4. Color changes to your skin

  • An unhealthy pale color, gray hue, yellowish color, cysts and spots that look like whiteheads.
  • Due to toxins build up.

5. Nail changes

  • a white color on the upper part of one or more nails and a normal to reddish brown color below (half-and-half nails).
  • Pale nails.
  • White bands running across one or more nails (Muehrcke’s nails).
  • Due to melanin deposition in the nail bed and plate.

6. Swelling

Kidneys can’t get rid of extra fluid and salt so they build up in your body

7. Rash

  • Small, dome-shaped, and extremely itchy bumps.
  • Occurs in end-stage kidney disease.
  • Due to chronic rubbing leading to epithelial hyperplasia and abnormal keratinization.

8. Blisters

  • Common in hands, face, feet.
  • Due to abnormalities in the enzyme uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase (URO-D).

9. Lump in stomach

  • Can be a sign of kidney cancer in its early stages and seldom causes symptoms.
  • When the cancer advances, it can cause a mass or lump on the side stomach or lower back.

10. Skin too tight to pinch

Extremely rare side effect that can occur when you get a diagnostic test that requires a contrasting agent called gadolinium in patient with renal insufficiency.

It can cause:

  • Areas of hard, shiny skin that too hard to pinch
  • Inability to fully bend a knee or elbow
  • Skin that feels bound down

11. Calcium deposits under your skin

  • Benign nodular calcification, comprised of calcium deposition within the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissues.
  • Due to elevated calcium phosphate product.

BEWARE!

Kidney disease commonly asymptomatic in early stage.

If you’re at risk for kidney disease, get your kidney check regularly by your doctor with simple blood and urine test.

Testing are extremely important if you :

  • Have diabetes or high blood pressure
  • 65 years of age or older

References

  1. Goel V, Sil A, Das A. Cutaneous Manifestations of Chronic Kidney Disease, Dialysis and Post-Renal Transplant: A Review. Indian J Dermatol. 2021 Jan-Feb;66(1):3-11. doi: 10.4103/ijd.IJD_502_20. PMID: 33911288; PMCID: PMC8061480.
  2. https://www.aad.org/public/diseases/a-z/kidney-disease-warning-signs
  3. Gagnon1 AL, Desai T. Dermatological diseases in patients with chronic kidney disease. J Nephropathol. 2013 Apr;2(2):104-9. doi: 10.12860/JNP.2013.17. Epub 2013 Apr 1. PMID: 24475435; PMCID: PMC3891143.
  4. https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/chronic-kidney-disease-associated-pruritus-itchy-skin
  5. https://www.freseniuskidneycare.com/thrive-central/kidney-disease-skin-conditions

Leave a Reply