If a person lost one kidney, would they have symptoms?

blood in the urine… unable to recover after getting wasted properly on Ale… maybe dehydration
... dizziness…. and finding your kidney on the ground

My mom had a kidney atrophy (from blood vessels closing up) and didn’t know it. For whatever that’s worth.

No.

One can live perfectly fine with one kidney.

There is a history of congenital kidney issues from my mothers side of the family.

She was born with only one kidney and her sister had 2, but one was only ⅔rds developed and ⅔rds functioning.

I had a history of bladder/kidney infections as a child and it was not untill I was almost 22 that some brilliant doctor figured out that I had a blocked ureter on my right kidney and when they went to operate there was a chance I would lose that kidney as it was deformed from all the back pressure.

They were able to repair and replace the ureter with a donor ‘specemin’ and I have now had zero issues in the last 29 years.
I was told that there were ‘pockets’ in the kideny that I might be more prone to kidney stones, but, has never happend, yet anyway.

I do drink tons of water but otherwise I consume alcohol within reason and do nothng differently.

There may be some connection with over consumption of calcium based products but I eat yogurt and cheese like there is no tomorrow. lol

Obviously if the one kidney fails that is a different matter all together.

I think if you were wounded in your kidney you would know. I have a feeling it would bleed a lot, but I am not a doctor. If it could possibly heal on its own, then there is a good chance the person would not know, because people live on one kidney just fine, unless of course his other kidney was not finctioning well, and he did not know. Still, it sounds like there would be a lot of bleeding, and a very high risk of infection, if a kidney was hit by a bullet or shrapnel.

@JLeslie Well in the story he very nearly dies, and is ill with infection for quite some time. I’m more curious about how he’d be in the months or years to come, after the infection and wound has healed.

@llewis and @Coloma this is helpful, thankyou.

As others have mentioned, people can live normal, healthy, symptom free lives with only one kidney but there would probably be symptoms from an acute battle wound to one kidney. My cat was hit by a car and came home and the only symptom he had other than being kind of wobbly, missing half a tooth, and frayed claws was blood in his urine. When I took him to the emergency vet the doc thought that his kidney (s) had either been badly bruised or punctured by a pelvis fracture. Luckily it was one kidney that was only bruised and my kitty was fine after the injury healed.

There are people who discover they only have one kidney and never knew. Their kidney function is fine, they find out cause they get a scan for something else and find out inadvertently. And, people donate a kidney to a loved one, and they are fine. If the other kidney is undamaged he should have no ill effects.

Of course they will have symptoms of a lost kidney! In your scenario tho, there will be severe internal bleeding, so the symptoms might be death.

@Coloma : I had the exact same problem, same kidney, and it took five doctors almost ten years to figure it out. I finally had to pay out of pocket for a kidney test, voila! There it was! I’ve had no problems either since it was fixed, I just can’t give one away, now.
@downtide : Renal dysfunction can be excrutiatingly painful, certain foods and drinks that have diuretic properties can overload a damaged kidney and cause some serious ouchitude. (Just a little something to work into your story…)

My step-father was born with one functional kidney and one atrophied piece of useless tissue. He only found out later in life.

The other one would just get a little bigger to compensate. Hope no one has said this yet.