What Happens if Chronic Kidney Disease Gets Worse?

If chronic kidney disease reaches stage 5, the most severe, you will need treatment to remove waste and water from your body in order to stay alive. Dialysis or a kidney transplant will allow you to live when your kidneys have failed.

•  Stages of chronic kidney disease

When your chronic kidney disease is at stage 4, it may be time to start planning ahead and thinking about which treatment is right for you. Ask your doctor when you should start getting ready. You’ll need to think about choices for dialysis, and perhaps a transplant evaluation.

Dialysis is a treatment to remove waste and water from your body when your kidneys can’t do the job. With a kidney transplant, a donated kidney is implanted in your body by a surgeon. It takes over the work of your damaged kidneys.

•  About dialysis
•  About transplant

Northwest Kidney Centers offers a free class, Choices, to help you learn more about dialysis and transplant and how to plan.

•  About the class
•  Class schedules and how to sign up

Northwest Kidney Centers keeps people in the Seattle area alive with dialysis care, educates the public about kidney health, and collaborates with UW Medicine in the Kidney Research Institute. We are one of very few community-based, nonprofit dialysis providers in the country. Founded in 1962, ours was the first out-of-hospital dialysis program in the world and it is still a model in the field.