If you have an infection, you will need antibiotics.

If you have kidney stones, there are ways to help.

For many other conditions, you will be able to have treatments that ease the complications or the symptoms, such as:

• a healthy diet
• maintaining a healthy weight
• not smoking
• medicines to treat high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol or other underlying conditions.

If kidney disease is treated early enough, it is possible to slow down its progression.

If it goes on to kidney failure, then the options are:

• kidney transplant, in which a diseased kidney is replaced by a healthy one from a donor
• dialysis, which uses a machine (haemodialysis) or other parts of the body (abdominal dialysis) to remove waste and extra fluid from your blood
• supportive care, which means providing all health care and support possible, but not attempting to cure the kidney failure. In this case the person with kidney failure will eventually die.