What do the kidneys do?
Your kidneys clean your blood.
Your kidneys are found on either side of your spine, just below and partly under your ribs.
Your kidneys work as filters to remove water and waste from your blood.
You get rid of this waste when you pass urine (pee).
Kidney disease damages the kidneys so that the waste can’t be properly removed from the body.
When this happens, the waste builds up in the body. If the damage becomes very bad, your kidneys don’t recover.
This is called end-stage kidney disease.
Over time, this will make a person very sick, and without treatment, the person will die.
End stage kidney disease is sometimes called renal or kidney failure.
You might know someone with kidney disease