Downers Grove recently celebrated the grand opening of U.S. Renal Care’s new 13-station dialysis facility, which will serve patients in the western suburbs.

“A renal care center is a facility that allows outpatient treatment of kidney failure,” said Dr. Anis Rauf, medical director of the Downers Grove renal facility. “When the kidney’s fail, the body is not able to get rid of toxic waste products. So you need to be hooked up to a machine that cleans your blood and gets the fluid out.”

Renal dialysis is the process of filtering the blood when the kidneys are unable by using a machine. It can be used to allow kidneys to heal from short-term problems, for long-term kidney support or while waiting for a kidney transplant.

“The top two causes of kidney failure is diabetes and high blood pressure so if you have uncontrolled diabetes or high blood pressure for many years,” Rauf said. “Kidney disease is the silent disease. You won’t have symptoms until it is very late in the disease,”