Not long ago, the department admitted a patient with chronic renal failure surnamed Min, who came in with very strong edema. It turned out that the patient knew he had kidney disease and drank a lot of water, thinking that drinking more water is beneficial to the treatment of kidney disease, but I did not expect the opposite, not only did not reduce kidney disease, edema is getting heavier. Here is the problem of drinking water for kidney patients. Many people have this idea – more water is good for health, for people with normal kidney function, drinking more water is indeed good for health. But for patients with poor kidney function, drinking more water can not be discharged in time, which will lead to increased edema, and in serious cases, even heart failure and life-threatening. Therefore, patients with poor kidney function should properly limit their water intake. However, another situation is just the opposite, some kidney disease patients are afraid to drink water because of the fear of edema aggravation, resulting in water shortage in the body, which is also detrimental to the body. So, how exactly should kidney patients drink water? The general principle is: let nature take its course, drink water when you are thirsty, do not force it, and trust the body’s automatic regulation. But if there is renal insufficiency, especially when the volume of urine is reduced, we should decide the amount of water to drink according to the patient’s urine volume, usually the previous day’s urine volume plus 500ml as the amount of water for the day, so that we can maintain the water balance, not too much and not too little. The patient named Min mentioned earlier, under our guidance, by controlling the amount of water she drank and with Chinese and Western medical treatment, her edema was quickly reduced and her condition stabilized. However, for other cases, such as patients with kidney stones, urinary tract infections or gout, the issue of drinking water should be treated differently. For these patients, we generally encourage them to drink more water to maintain sufficient urine output, provided of course that their kidney function is not problematic.