Alcohol may indirectly increase the risk of developing a urinary tract infection (UTI). The best thing you can do to prevent kidney damage caused by heavy drinking is to detox from alcohol and either quit drinking entirely or drink only in moderation. Swapping hard liquor drinks for low-alcohol beer and wine can help you avoid drinking too much alcohol, as can making sure you stay adequately hydrated. Drink a glass of water for every alcoholic drink to help balance out the amount of alcohol consumed.

Healthy kidney vs. diseased kidney

Our kidneys play many important roles keeping our bodies in balance. They remove waste and toxins, excess water from the bloodstream, which is carried out does alcohol affect your kidneys of the body in urine. They helped to make hormones to produce red blood cells, and they turn vitamin D into its active form, so it’s usable in the body.

Polycystic Kidney Disease

Your two renal veins take oxygen-depleted blood from your kidneys to your heart. If a blood clot develops in either or both, it’s called renal vein thrombosis (RVT). Your doctor will likely prescribe you an antibiotic if your kidney pain is being caused by an infection. Intense, sudden, stabbing pain may indicate a kidney stone. These are mineral deposits that can grow large enough to block a ureter, a tube that connects your kidney and bladder. If that happens, you’ll feel sharp pain or cramps in your back or side.

Kidney Pain

Because there are muscles, bones and other organs around your kidneys, it can be hard to tell what exactly is causing your pain. If you have constant pain you think may be caused by your kidneys, talk to your doctor. Back pain can affect the entire back, but most people experience pain in the lower back. People can develop back pain from heavy lifting, poor posture, and sitting or standing for too long. Certain medical conditions, such as arthritis, osteoporosis, and infections, can also cause back pain. Kidney pain can occur on one or both sides of the back just below the rib cage.

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Common causes of belly button infections include an infected piercing and poor hygiene. An umbilical hernia can cause a bump or bulge around the navel. You may feel pain, pressure, or a pulling sensation that radiates from the belly button to the lower abdomen. The pain can be especially sharp when coughing, sneezing, exercising, or stretching.

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• Regular heavy drinking has been found to double the risk chronic kidney disease, which does not go away over time.
• Frequent urination that goes along with this flushing of the system can lead to dehydration.
• In this article, learn more about the causes of kidney pain and how they might be related to drinking alcohol.

Pylori infection, gallstones, pancreatitis, or bowel obstruction. In contrast, heavy drinking leads to the development of nonischemic dilated cardiomyopathy (Klatsky 2007) and significantly increases the risk of sudden cardiac death (Hookana et al. 2011). Studies suggest that ethanol consumption may increase renal expression of other potential sources of free radicals involving a family of enzymes called nitric oxide synthases (Tirapelli et al. 2012). Tirapelli and colleagues (2012) showed that ethanol consumption increased the expression of two nitric oxide synthases. However, it is still unclear exactly how ethanol upregulates nitric oxide synthases, or whether it does so directly or indirectly. It may be that toxins released from the intestines into blood circulation because of ethanol’s effects on the digestive system activate the expression of nitric oxide synthase.

Alcohol does not cause direct harm to the kidneys, especially when consumed in a safe manner. However, if you have kidney disease, you need to be mindful of how much you drink and the downstream effects that alcohol can have on your body. If your pain stems from kidney stones, your doctor may prescribe you medication to help you pass the stone. But if you have many kidney stones, or they’re too big to pass, your doctor may recommend surgery to break them down. Not all forms of kidney disease are preventable, but adopting a healthful lifestyle may reduce the risk of complications, even in people with genetic kidney disorders. In this article, learn more about the causes of kidney pain and how they might be related to drinking alcohol.

If you’ve already been diagnosed with cancer, drinking alcohol could also affect your risk of developing a new cancer. It’s one thing to have the usual symptoms such as swelling of your stomach lining, UTI, or kidney infection, but it’s another to have a more serious condition. Alcohol-related back pain can also indicate diseases such as chronic pancreatitis or acute pancreatitis (or worse, pancreatic cancer), polyneuropathy, alcoholic hepatitis, and Hodgkin lymphoma. The kidneys are about the size of our fists and are located below the rib cage on either side of our spines. Kidney pain may be experienced as back pain, but if there is kidney damage resulting from alcohol use, other symptoms may occur. We review the symptoms of kidney damage and kidney failure further along in this article, but first let’s discuss how alcohol interacts with the kidneys.

Polycystic kidney disease

Chronic kidney disease is a disease characterized by progressive damage and loss of function in the kidneys. It’s estimated that chronic kidney disease affects about one in seven American adults. Before we get into the disease itself, let’s talk a little bit about the kidneys and what they do.