Kidney infection: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What a kidney infection is

A kidney infection, or pyelonephritis, is an infection of one or both kidneys. It is usually caused by bacteria, most often E. coli from the bowel, that get into the bladder and travel up to the kidneys. It often starts as a bladder infection, cystitis, that spreads.

Typical signs are pain in the side, the lower back or around the groin, a high temperature, shivering, feeling sick or vomiting, and the symptoms of a urine infection: burning, needing to go often, cloudy or smelly urine, sometimes blood. Women are more often affected because their urethra is shorter. Pregnancy, kidney stones, an enlarged prostate, a catheter and diabetes all raise the risk.

A kidney infection is treated with antibiotics, usually tablets taken at home, and should be seen by a doctor the same day. Severe infections are treated in hospital. Without treatment, it can damage the kidneys or spread into the blood and cause sepsis, which is life-threatening.

In French, néphrite once meant any kidney disease, and now usually means an inflammation of the kidneys. A kidney infection is one form of that inflammation. For other kidney troubles, see kidney problems.

The emotional meaning of a kidney infection

The kidneys filter the blood and clear out what the body does not need. Spiritually, they are linked to fear. When they become inflamed, the question is what has been kept in that should have been cleared.

Deep fear about life and death

Inflamed kidneys are linked to fright and great anguish about life and death. You may live with a fear so deep it has no words, about survival, about losing someone, or about your own life.

Frustration pushed down

Next to the fear there are frustrations, a sense of failure, or disappointments that were never channelled. Instead of living them through, you pushed them down to the bottom of yourself. An infection, with its heat and its burning, can mirror what has been building there.

Overreacting and feeling powerless

Something in your life upsets you so much that you react far more strongly than you would like, or you feel wound up by it. At the same time you feel powerless before it, and you do not see what this situation is trying to teach you.

Anger at yourself for not saying no

Spiritually, a kidney infection can point to violence turned inwards. You blame yourself for not being able to stand up for yourself, and for saying yes when you wanted to say no. That anger has nowhere to go.

What you swallow back

You poison yourself with what you swallow. The words you do not say, the reactions you hold back, the things you accept to keep the peace, all have to be filtered somewhere.

Secrets that make the kidneys work harder

Well-hidden secrets make the kidneys work much harder. Keeping something quiet takes constant effort, and the filter carries the strain.

Left side or right side?

A kidney infection often hurts more on one side. In this approach, the right side of the body carries the active, "masculine" principle and the left side the receptive, "feminine" one, in men and women alike. See the guide to the left and right sides of the body.

• Left kidney: the fear and the swallowed frustration may sit in your emotional life, with a partner, your family or the women in your life. Ask where you held back a feeling or a "no" at home.
• Right kidney: the fear may be about the outer world, work, money, decisions and the men in your life. Ask where you failed to stand up for yourself in that world.

Whichever side it is, one-sided back pain with fever needs a doctor first.

A gentler way to hold it

The aim is not to blame yourself for an infection. Bacteria cause it, antibiotics treat it, and the warning signs above need prompt care. The emotional perspective invites you to look at what you have been holding in.

• Trust life a little more. Name the fear you carry, and notice that naming it already makes it smaller.
• Express yourself. Say one thing this week that you would usually have swallowed.
• Practise the "no". Begin with something small. Each no you say is one less thing to filter.
• Let the disappointment be felt. A failure you live through clears more easily than one you bury.
• Lighten a secret. You do not have to tell the world. Telling one trusted person can be enough.
• Build your confidence. Notice what you did well today, and let peace come from there.