Skin Itch in the Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease

Skin itch is one of the most common symptoms of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), especially in those with end stage kidney disease. In some patients, skin itch occurs intermittently and lasts only several minutes, but other patients suffer from prolonged periods of severe pruritus, which can occur throughout day and night. With time passing by, patients may have a different color in skin, their spirits may turn to blue and they even cannot sleep well in the night.
▼ Why does skin itch occur to patients with Chronic Kidney Disease? The metabolin of ammonia maintained in the body can stimulate the sebaceous gland and sweat gland to shrink, and then make the skin dry and desquamate in different degree. The skin may look like fish scales and patient may have skin itch.
Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease always have a high level of parathyroid hormone which can stimulate the mastocytes to release histamine and cause skin itch. In addition, high level of parathyroid hormone is easy to cause Hypercalcemia, leading to the deposition of Ca in the skin and make people have skin itch.
1. The skin itch also can be cause by the changes in the nerves of the patients with Uremia (the end stage of CKD), this is a type of Neurological Pruritus.
2. Some CKD sufferers are easy to be allergic which can also cause skin itch.
▼ How can we deal with skin itch?
The skin itch is so boring that it can make the patients despair and loss love for life. Then what can we do to deal with this problem?
1. We can limit the intake of protein and phosphorus strictly. This is always the most common limitation for the CKD sufferers, as the two things can affect their health in many ways.
2. Use some medicines to control the symptoms. In western country, there are several kinds of medicines as follows. Antihistamines such as diphenhydramine (Benadryl). Corticosteroids such as hydrocortisone topical cream. Counterirritants, such as mint oil, menthol, or camphor.
3. As for those patients whose itch feelings have not been remitted, they can consider to resect the gley's glands.

Patients with end stage Chronic Kidney Disease are at a higher risk to have pruritus; therefore, they should pay more attention to the symptoms and have a timely treatment as soon as possible.