Learning how you can protect yourself against kidney disease is the first step in prevention, but managing any disease that might occur is another way to help increase your chances of a long and healthy life. Some of the more common kidney disease conditions include kidney stones, kidney failure, and kidney cancer. What do you use your kidneys for? Most of us just aren't sure about the answer to this question. The simplest explanation is that the kidneys strain out any unnecessary toxins from our bodies and then allow us to secrete these toxins in our urine. When the kidneys are not functioning properly, these toxins can build up in our bodies, causing massive health problems and even become fatal. We need our kidneys to keep our bodies healthy and active. A common condition that affects many people each year is kidney stones, in which our body builds up too much uric acid in the blood stream. This can be caused by a number of things: certain foods, a genetic predisposition, etc. When the uric acid builds up in our bloodstream, the kidneys try to filter it out, but the acid begins to form crystals that turn into larger stones in the kidneys that can not be filtered out. This causes pain and even an infection in the kidneys. You might feel extreme lower back pain, blood in the urine, painful urination, and a fever when you have a kidney stone or stones. There are some medications that area available to dissolve these kinds of stones, but larger kidney stones may need to be removed during a surgery. When the organ simply doesn't work the way it is supposed to, it is called kidney failure. The good news is that we all have two kidneys, so if one should fail, the second can still work hard enough to filter our entire body of toxins. However, when the second kidney fails, we need to do more to help our body. A kidney transplant is a fairly common course of action in these cases. You might receive a new kidney from a donor or a family member to replace your old one. In the meantime, you might undergo kidney dialysis to help remove the toxins from your bloodstream. This is where you are hooked up to a machine and your blood is 'strained' once or twice a week, depending on your body. While you can undergo dialysis for a long time, it's preferred that you eventually get the transplant when dealing with kidney failure. Kidney cancer is a bit rarer of a disease. While it sounds scary, it is easily treated when it is caught in its early stages. You might experience constant dull pain in your lower back under your ribs as well as weight loss, fever, and fatigue. If you find that you are experiencing these symptoms, it's best to have yourself checked by a doctor to make sure that nothing is wrong. If you are diagnosed with kidney cancer and the cancer has not spread to other parts of your body, chances are good that radiation and chemotherapy will be able to help you. You might also need to have the diseased kidney removed, depending on the severity of the cancer.