Diagnosis of Glomerulonephritis

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Often there are no symptoms at all. Sometimes glomerulonephritis is only diagnosed following a routine medical check-up, or during tests related to having high blood pressure, feeling tired or being pregnant. If you already have kidney disease, your doctor may want to test for glomerulonephritis.

If you have glomerulonephritis, a urine test will show up blood and protein in the urine. A range of tests will be carried out to assess how well your kidneys are working (renal function tests). These will include blood samples to find out levels of sodium, chloride, potassium and urea. Tests may show that you are producing less urine than usual overall.

If glomerulonephritis is suspected, the doctor may take a throat swab (scraping some cells from the back of your throat) a sample of to confirm the diagnosis.

Some varieties of glomerulonephritis are more serious than others. Your doctor may remove and examine a small sample of kidney tissue (a biopsy) to see how serious the glomerulonephritis is. This is usually done using local anaesthetic and a small needle. The test carries a small risk of bleeding.