Kidney Reflux

Kidney reflux is a condition generally found in young children where urine is allowed to pass up into the ureters during urination. This allows bacteria present in urine proliferate, and sometimes pass up into the kidneys. As you can well imagine, this condition can cause some serious problems. However, this is rarely the case. Kidney reflux is usually outgrown by school age. Basically, your baby girl has a valve in her bladder that is either too small or too weak to do its job. As she grows, the valve will also grow and get stronger, and eventually fix the problem. Until that happens, your pediatrician (or possibly a urologist) should keep an eye on the situation, and treat the complications. It sounds like they're doing a good job of this by placing her on a maintenance dose of antibiotics.
If your daughter gets older, and the problem doesn't resolve itself or becomes severe, there is a surgical fix. A surgeon will go in through key hole surgery, sever the ureter, and reattach it at a slightly different angle. This is not very likely to happen because as I've said, she'll most likely outgrow the problem.
**Things to keep in mind:
Constant low doses of antibiotics can cause antibiotic resistant illnesses. If your daughter gets sick, make sure that it is well know that she's been on low dose antibiotics, how long, which antibiotic, and what dose. This is important!
If you daughter starts to have pain with urination, flank pain, fever, or general malaise, have her seen by the doctor. Don't assume that it's a bug. She's at higher risk for serious infection until this gets sorted out.
Make some sort of deal with your pediatrician for how to deal with nighttime and weekend illnesses. It's better to make arrangements now and never need them, than sit in an ER or urgent care for hours when your pediatrician could deal with it in minutes.

Good luck. I hope this helps

M.,
My niece had kidney reflux as well. She was on antibiotics until she was 2 and could have a procedure to correct the refulx. The surgery corrects the angle of the tube connecting the kidneys to the bladder. She is now 7 years old and has no side effects from the condition or procedure. It is a long time to wait until your daughter is 2, but there is hope when her body is strong enough to handle the surgery. My sister took pictures of my niece as she poured out the extra antibiotics after the surgery. It made a great page for their scrapbook, and reminds us of an answer to our many prayers.

M. if you go to familydoctor.org and look for kidney reflux in children it will explain your childs temporary condition

usually goes away on its own and most don't need surgery

V.

My daughter is 6 years old. She had a few UTI's here and there but it really became a problem when she was 5. She had a UTI for 3 months. She had a VCUG and renal ultrasound and we found out she has VUR (reflux into the kidney) on the left kidney along with duplication of the ureters, a large bladder, voiding disorder and large kidneys. She has been on the antibiotic (bactrim) for a year now. In her situation her reflux is a grade 4 and she has not out grown it. It is now causing scaring of her kidney, she will have the DEFLUX (www.deflux.com) procedure on the 28th of this month. We opted for this even though with her high grade reflux there is only a 60% sucess rate because it is not as invasive as the traditional open surgery. If this does not work we still have the option of the open surgery, but we figured we'd give this a shot first. Definatley check out the DEFLUX website, it has so much good information on VUR and treatment options. I wish you the best of luck!!

Hi M.- My step-daughter also has kidney reflux. She is now 7 and was diagnosed with it around age 5. She was on an antibiotic for over a year and had breakthough infections and also experienced some leaking. She was put on another med for the leaking. They did VCUG's at Phoenix Children's every 6 months to monitor the level of the reflux. The hope was that as she grew, it would take care of itself, which I guess happens a lot. Jenna's stayed on the less severe end but she had some breakthrough infections so they decided to do a proceedure to correct it. They injected "deflux" a toothpaste like substance to correct the issue. There is also a surgical proceedure that can be done, but I think the urologists wait until the kidney refux is at a grade 3 or 4. She had the procedure back in August of 07, and we have had no UTI's and have discontinued the meds entirely. I would be happy to give you more specific info or answer any other questions if you would like.