*Back pain can come from an ordinary muscle strain, but doctors say certain pain patterns and accompanying symptoms may point to a kidney problem instead — and knowing the difference can help determine when it’s time to seek medical care.
Where Kidney Pain Usually Shows Up
Musculoskeletal back pain often occurs around the lower spine and may change depending on how a person moves, sits or bends. Pain involving a nerve can also radiate into the buttocks, legs or feet.
Kidney pain typically appears higher, around the middle of the back and on either side of the spine in an area known as the flank.
“The key thing to notice about back pain,” Cheyenne Zychowski, M.S.N., R.N., of MCG Health explained to Prevention, is that it often becomes better or worse depending on movement.
Kidney pain, by comparison, is generally more consistent and less affected by body position, the experts said. There are exceptions: Kidney stones can produce sharp pain that comes and goes in waves as a stone moves.
Scroll to continue reading
The Other Symptoms That Change the Picture
Location isn’t the only clue. Kidney-related pain can appear alongside symptoms that ordinary muscle soreness typically doesn’t cause.
Warning signs include bloody, dark, cloudy or unusually foul-smelling urine; painful or frequent urination; fever or chills; and nausea. Kidney stones can also cause sharp pain in the back, side, lower abdomen or groin and may cause vomiting or blood in the urine.
The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases lists similar symptoms for kidney infections, including back, side or groin pain, fever and chills, urinary changes, nausea and vomiting. Kidney infections often begin as bladder infections that spread upward to one or both kidneys.
Why Kidney Pain Shouldn’t Be Ignored
Kidney pain does not automatically mean kidney failure. Possible causes discussed by Prevention include kidney stones, kidney infections, trauma, polycystic kidney disease and tumors.
But some kidney problems can become serious without treatment. NIDDK says most kidney infections do not cause complications when diagnosed early and treated properly. In rare cases, however, complications can include kidney scarring, chronic kidney disease, sepsis and kidney failure.
That makes the symptoms accompanying an unexplained ache especially important. NIDDK advises people with kidney-infection symptoms to seek medical care promptly because, although uncommon, an infection can progress to life-threatening sepsis.
Doctors may use a physical exam, urinalysis, urine culture, blood tests or imaging to determine whether pain is kidney related.
The takeaway isn’t that every backache signals kidney disease. Pain that changes noticeably with movement may point toward a musculoskeletal problem, while flank pain accompanied by fever, urinary changes, nausea or vomiting deserves closer attention.
Those warning signs are a reason to get evaluated rather than trying to diagnose the problem from pain alone.
(If You Like/Appreciate This EURweb Story, Please SHARE it!)
RELATED NEWS ON EURWEB.COM: Experimental Cannabis Drug Shows Promise in Treating Chronic Back Pain
We Publish Breaking News 24/7. Don’t Miss Out! Sign up for our Free daily newsletter HERE.
