What to do if creatinine in the blood is elevated

What is creatinine

Creatinine is a substance that formed in muscles after they produce energy. During work, muscle tissue is destroyed, and creatinine enters the bloodstream, and then it is filtered by the kidneys and excreted as waste in the urine.

Why can creatinine be elevated in the blood?

There may be several reasons

Lifestyle

Certain eating habits or lifestyle habits increase creatinine level. So, it will be more for those who train intensively (after all, loads accelerate metabolism, muscle growth and breakdown), and those who love meat (because meat is muscle that also contains creatinine).

And the percentage of creatinine will increase if you do not drink enough water, although its absolute amount will remain the same. It's just that against the background of thicker concentrated blood, many indicators seem overestimated.

What to do

Do not eat at least 12 hours before the analysis, do not abuse barbecue, exercise the day before and drink enough. For half an hour, eliminate physical and emotional stress.

Taking certain medications

Usually creatinine rises due to medications that affect for its absorption and excretion or damage kidneys or muscles. This:

• mercury compounds;
• sulfanilamide;
• thiazides;
• antibiotics such as aminoglycosides, cephalosporins, tetracyclines, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole;
• barbiturates;
• salicylates;
• androgens;
• antiulcer agents such as cimetidine;
• vitamin D;
• glucocorticosteroids;
• antirheumatic drugs, such as leflunomide;
• some chemotherapy drugs;
• propofol and others.

What to do

When doctors prescribe medications that could theoretically affect muscles or kidneys, they usually recommend monitoring blood counts and periodically getting tested. So with changes in the analysis, you need to go to your doctor. If suddenly the analysis was prescribed for another reason, and creatinine is suddenly elevated there, just in case, report all the medications you take.

kidney disease

As we have said, the kidneys filter creatinine from the blood and excrete it in the urine. Therefore, as soon as something in their work is disturbed, the level of creatinine changes. He can be promoted with any diseases of the excretory organs: acute and chronic renal failure, amyloidosis (a condition when the tissue of organs replaced by a special amyloid protein), bacterial pyelonephritis, glomerulonephritis (a disease in which blood vessels are damaged), and many others.

What to do

An additional examination is needed to rule out kidney disease. Increase in creatinine is not always speaks that the kidneys do not function well as a filter. Its quantity is strong depends age, race, sex and other parameters, so it is best to evaluate the kidneys with a glomerular filtration rate (GFR) calculator. It is available on the Internet, in medical applications and programs for doctors. This indicator is more accurate, because it takes into account more characteristics of a particular person.

Muscle diseases

The more intense are destroyed muscles, the more creatinine enters the bloodstream. Therefore, if a person begins to have myositis (inflammation) or rhabdomyolysis (destruction) of the muscles, the level of creatinine rises. Due to the fact that a lot of muscle breakdown products immediately enter the bloodstream, the kidneys are overloaded and also suffer. In mild cases, changes will only be in the analyzes. In serious cases, this will be manifested by muscle pain, weakness and darkening of the urine.

What to do

Treatment will depend from the reasons due to which the muscles suffer. Sometimes it's an infection, and sometimes it's an autoimmune process. Therefore, the doctor must first make a diagnosis.

Shock

Shock is the body's response to extreme injury. Depending on the reasons there are different types of shock. For example, with the loss of a large volume of blood, hypovolemic occurs, with a sudden disruption of the heart, cardiogenic, and so on. The body throws all its strength into the blood supply to the brain and heart, and the rest of the parts begin to starve. Therefore, the ability of the kidneys to filter urine is reduced, and muscles can break down. From it in the blood grows creatinine level.

What to do

Shock is always a life-threatening condition. He is usually treated in intensive care. Treatment regimens will vary depending on the cause, but the main goal is prevent organ failure and death.

Diseases of the cardiovascular system

For example, these are conditions such as myocardial infarction, myocarditis, cardiogenic shock. Creatinine may increase both due to the destruction of the heart muscle, and due to the development of shock, which can be with a massive heart attack, thrombosis and other emergencies.

What to do

In case of a heart attack, it is necessary to restore blood circulation in clogged vessels as soon as possible. To do this, you can insert a stent or dissolve the clot with medication.

Myocarditis - inflammation of the heart muscle - is more difficult to notice because it is not so acute, but because of it, irreversible changes in the myocardium can develop. Because of them, the heart can no longer work normally. By the way, this is one of the reasons to get a flu shot, since myocarditis is one of the complications.

Endocrine diseases

The endocrine system regulates the work of the whole organism with the help of produced substances. For example, if the thyroid works insufficiently effective, the kidneys shrink, the vessels in them narrow, the absorption of ions worsens, the receptors become less sensitive. All this does not allow the kidneys to efficiently remove creatinine, and its level rises. With severe hypothyroidism muscle diseases develop, their destruction begins, and therefore even more creatinine enters the bloodstream. But treatment helps to bring the indicators back to normal.

Problems can also be with an excess of growth hormone, which meets with acromegaly and gigantism and leads, among other things, to an increase in the kidneys. The grown organs begin to work not better, but worse, because the kidney tissue is replaced by a denser one.

The hormone insulin does not directly affect the kidneys, but it regulates the amount of sugar in the blood. In a person with diabetes are damaged small vessels throughout the body. In the kidneys, this leads to a violation of filtration, so the amount of creatinine will increase.

What to do

If you suspect an endocrine disease, you need to contact a therapist who will refer you to an endocrinologist. It will help keep hormone levels under control. In hypothyroidism, additional thyroxine is usually prescribed. With acromegaly and gigantism, the cause is most often in the tumor, so they try to remove it. And patients with diabetes control the amount of sugar with insulin and hypoglycemic drugs.