Pyelonephritis
Pyelonephritis is bacterial infection of the kidney, usually but not always, a result of an ascending urinary tract infection. There is loin pain in association with swinging fever which may cause shaking attacks called rigors. It is much more likely to occur in the presence of structural kidney abnormality such as cysts or stones, so once the attack has been treated it may be advisable to investigate the urinary tract. Chronic pyelonephritis usually occurs as a result of reflux disease, where urine from the bladder passes back up the tubes - the ureters - to the kidneys during urination as a result of defective functioning of the valves between the ureters and the bladder. This is a congenital abnormality. It produces small scarred kidneys which may cause chronic renal failure.
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