When winter comes, stimulated by cold air, people’s respiratory resistance decreases and they are especially vulnerable to colds. Especially in the following cases: the weather is cold and hot; or more up to exercise; or thin clothing; or biking in the wind; or sweat body blowing cold; or cold night up; or snow long freeze; or hot house outside, etc.. The elderly, infants and children, and patients with low resistance are more likely to suffer from colds. The cold is a common viral infection that can cure itself in a week or so in people with normal resistance. However, for some people it can also be complicated by serious heart or lung infections. Especially, patients with kidney disease should pay special attention to prevent colds because they can trigger and aggravate kidney disease. Here are the dangers of colds for various types of kidney disease: Colds: an associated pathogenic factor of acute nephritis Acute nephritis can be caused by post-streptococcal infection or non-streptococcal infection. Post-streptococcal acute nephritis occurs in winter and spring, often 1 to 3 weeks after a cold, i.e., an upper respiratory tract infection. This type of patients also have streptococcal infection tonsillitis and pharyngitis, stimulating the patient’s body immune response, after 1 to 3 weeks, the patient’s blood anti-streptococcal hemolysin “O” antibody (anti-O antibody) increased, complement decreased, glomerular thylakoid cells and basement membrane with anti-streptococcal antigens. Glomerulonephritis after non-streptococcal infection can be caused by a variety of bacteria and viruses. Among them, influenza virus can also directly cause acute nephritis. Acute nephritis manifests edema, hematuria and hypertension, and also proteinuria, which can be complicated by renal insufficiency and hypertensive encephalopathy in severe cases. Therefore, if you have edema and hematuria 1 to 3 weeks after a cold, you should think that you may have acute nephritis. The chronic nephritis can be caused by bacterial, viral or protozoal infections through both immune and non-immune mechanisms, and some can develop from acute nephritis. Most chronic nephritis has an insidious onset and a long course. Although it also manifests as edema, proteinuria, hematuria, and hypertension, the condition can be mild or severe, with rapid or slow progression, and some can develop into renal insufficiency more quickly. The kidney is composed of kidney units and interstitium, and each kidney has about 1 million kidney units, which in turn are composed of renal tubules and renal vesicles. However, the characteristic of kidney unit is that it cannot be regenerated, and one is less if it is sclerotic and necrotic, unlike liver cells which have regenerative function. If a patient with chronic nephritis has a cold or upper respiratory infection, it will trigger an immune response and inflammatory mediators to damage the kidney units. One cold will aggravate the damage once, and repeated colds will repeatedly aggravate the damage to the kidney. When the kidney unit sclerosis necrosis to a certain number, it will cause renal function damage. Especially a secondary glomerulonephritis – lupus nephritis, the immune response is stronger. If repeated colds and upper respiratory infections occur, the development of lupus nephritis lesions will be accelerated. Cold: a risk factor for patients with renal insufficiency When nephritis progresses to a certain level, the filtration function of the glomerulus is impaired, which is usually called renal insufficiency. In the early stages, renal insufficiency may not be obvious on its own. However, when the kidney damage reaches 75% or more, the creatinine clearance will be less than 25%, and the blood creatinine will reach about 400 mmol/L. If such a patient has a serious cold, upper respiratory tract infection with high fever, etc., there may be various temporary factors that damage the kidneys, and the creatinine clearance may drop by 5-20% at once, and the blood creatinine will reach 600-800mmol/L or more, and it will be complicated by gastrointestinal bleeding, high potassium, or heart failure in severe cases. Although the rise of blood creatinine will be reversible and can be reduced to some extent by treatment, these risk factors will damage all organs of the body and can be life-threatening in serious cases. Cold: Kidney transplant patients should be alert to complications of serious lung infections Kidney transplant patients know that kidney rejection is not life-threatening, while lung infections are life-threatening. Because severe lung infections often manifest as diffuse infections, there will be hypoxemia, pulmonary edema, to use a ventilator to assist breathing, the development of the process as SARS – SARS, the risk is very high. The cause of the disease is mainly a mixture of cytomegalovirus, bacteria and fungal infections. Kidney transplant patients have to use immunosuppressants and their immunity is generally low. When a cold occurs, their recovery will also take longer than normal. When a cold with a high fever lasts for more than three days, beware if it can be complicated by cytomegalovirus infection. Therefore, it is best to take cytomegalovirus prevention medication along with the treatment of a severe cold. Flu: a good time to observe patients with unexplained hematuria In hospital outpatient clinics, we encounter many patients with unexplained hematuria. These patients have been ill for several months to several years, with red blood cells and occult blood + to + + + + in the urine, and red blood cell counts ranging from a few to several dozen. After various urinalysis, immunoassay, ultrasound, X-ray, CT, etc., the cause is nephritis, or urinary tract infection, or urinary tract stone, or vascular malformation, etc. is not known. Since kidney biopsy tests are invasive, they cannot be performed arbitrarily. As mentioned above, a cold can trigger an immune response and aggravate chronic nephritis lesions. If this unexplained hematuria is caused by occult nephritis, the degree of its hematuria can be worse than it was within a few days after the cold, with an increase in urinary red blood cells and an increased chance of urinary anomalous red blood cells. And urinary anomalous red blood cells are an important basis to assist in the diagnosis of nephritis. Therefore, patients with unexplained hematuria should go to the hospital promptly within a week after the cold to check urine routine and urine phase contrast microscopy to find out whether urine red blood cells have increased and whether anomalous red blood cells have appeared to facilitate the diagnosis of hematuria. Cold: How to prevent and treat nephritis patients The main prevention of cold for nephritis patients is the same as for healthy people, mainly to avoid cold, pay attention to exercise and nutrition to enhance physical fitness, avoid contact with cold patients, and keep the air in the living room fresh. As most nephritis patients have chronic pharyngitis and chronic tonsillitis, the cold will aggravate this inflammation, accompanied by a variety of bacterial and viral infections, so nephritis patients should usually pay attention to oral hygiene, to prevent chronic pharyngitis and tonsillitis attacks. You can often drink tea with honeysuckle and use some oral lozenges as appropriate. The treatment of nephritis patients who have a cold is also the same as the general population, you can use antipyretic and analgesic drugs and Banlangen, cold flush, etc.. But the general public do not advocate the use of antibiotics, but nephritis patients with pharyngitis and tonsillitis, so you can use some antibiotics that are not harmful to the kidneys and effective for chronic pharyngitis, such as amoxicillin, erythromycin, azithromycin, etc. In fact, the so-called “tonic”, in short, is to make up for “deficiency”, to make up for “deficiency”, in broad terms, is to make up for “balance of the body The “balance of the body”. Nephrolithiasis patients have the same immune deficiencies and different physical conditions, so they should also use different creams to “make up”. The main principles of using poultices for nephritis patients are to tonify the kidneys, invigorate blood circulation and remove blood stasis, clear heat and detoxify the body, and identify and treat the symptoms. The main purpose of tonifying the kidney is to improve the immune status, invigorating blood stasis is to reduce the immune response, clearing heat and detoxifying is to reduce the inflammation of chronic pharyngitis and tonsillitis, and the diagnosis and treatment is to adjust the balance of the body according to different patients, as well as adjusting the medication according to the patient’s proteinuria, hematuria and kidney function. In addition, immune-promoting drugs such as ginseng and ganoderma lucidum should be used with caution.