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Renal Artery Stenosis

12/22/2009

Question:

I`ve been diagnosed with Renal Artery Stenosis. I will be seeing a kidney disease specialist as soon as the referral can be made. Can this cause pain? I have had left pain for years and have attibuted it to “back pain”; however, it`s always on the left hand side and I was wondering if it could be related?

Answer:

No, your pain is not related to your renal artery stenosis.  Renal artery stenosis means narrowing of the renal artery, usually by cholesterol plaques associated with atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries).  These plaques and the narrowing usually develop over years and do not cause symptoms.  Rarely, if a renal artery becomes blocked very suddenly, as with severe injury or sudden development of a blood clot, the kidney is suddenly deprived of its blood supply, and this can cause death of kidney tissue over a period of hours to days, and can be very painful.  However, this is not the case with you!  See the link below for a discussion of kidney pain — yours is almost certainly musculoskeletal in origin.

Related Resources:

Kidney Pain

For more information:

Go to the Kidney Diseases health topic.