Join in the Red Socks Walk on Sunday 10 October, 2021 at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane to help raise some much needed funds and awareness for a great cause.

Some Quick Kidney Facts

Kidneys are essential to a person’s health and wellbeing. They rid your body of waste (through urine), clean your blood of waste and toxins, regulate your blood pressure and manage the production of Vitamin D – essential to strong bones, muscles and overall health!
The biggest risk factors for kidney disease are diabetes, high blood pressure, established heart problems and/or stroke, family history of kidney failure, smoking, obesity, being 60 years or older, of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander origin, or a history of acute kidney injury. To check your risk visit www.kidney.org.au/kidneyrisktest
About 63 people die with kidney-related disease every day
Kidney disease is a silent killer – sufferers can lose 90% of kidney function without experiencing any symptoms
1 in 3 people in Australia are at risk of developing chronic kidney disease
A staggering 1.7 million Australian adults are affected by kidney disease while 1.5 million of those are unaware of it
Kidney-related disease kills more people than breast cancer, prostate cancer and road accidents
One in five Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have indicators of chronic kidney disease and are almost four times more likely to die from it than the non-Indigenous population.

How can you help?

In October 2021 the Kidney Community needs your support.
You can do this by:
– Joining the Red Socks Walk on Sunday 10 October, 2021 at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane
– Registering for your Red Socks personal challenge in October.
– Buying a pair of Red Socks to proudly wear throughout October to raise vital funds to fight kidney disease

Red Socks Appeal

Kidney Health Australia Chief Executive Officer, Chris Forbes said the idea behind the Red Socks Appeal is to recognise the countless hours that people of all ages with kidney failure spend hooked to a life-saving dialysis machine to help clean their body of toxins.

“A little-known fact about kidney disease is that people with kidney failure can spend 60 hours or more a month hooked to a dialysis machine to keep them alive,” Mr Forbes said. “Dialysis machines basically clean the blood of toxins so it’s filtered out of the body and then returned, and this takes on average five hours at a time, three times a week,” says Mr Forbes. “This process plus the long hours in the chair can leave patients feeling fatigued and quite cold, so a blanket and a warm pair of socks is a must to get them through it.”

“We’d love people to put themselves in the ‘socks’ of someone living with kidney disease and run, ride, walk, hop, skip or dance their way through October to raise money for our courageous kidney community,” Mr Forbes said.

Money raised from the Red Socks Appeal will help fund critical and much valued support services such as the Kidney Helpline, Kidney Kids and Youth Program and the Big Red Kidney Bus. Of the 1.7 million Australians affected by kidney disease, 1.5 million are unaware they are living with the early
signs of the disease.

“The shocking fact about kidney disease is that a person can lose up to 90% of their kidney function before any symptoms are apparent,” Mr Forbes said.
“A person could be relatively fine one day and the next they could be in hospital facing a life sentence of continuous dialysis or on a transplant list, waiting for a suitable kidney donor.”

“We need to prevent people reaching this point, so the Red Socks Appeal is also a great opportunity to raise more awareness around the impact this disease has on people’s lives and that of their families to drive up earlier detection and diagnosis,” Mr Forbes said.

“In this age of COVID-19, we’ve made sure the event has something for everyone – if people can’t get out to raise money, they can still wear Red Socks and support us in their living rooms and on social media – this is a
community event that everyone can get behind,” Mr Forbes said.