Malade “les reins”

In Mauritius, there is a great misnomer – malade les reins. When someone comes and says that he/she is having ‘ les reins fer mal’, he/she is in fact referring to back ache (‘les dos fer mal’) and not to the kidney disease – per se!

So we need to clarify over and over again what is meant by ‘les reins’ and what we, as doctors, mean when we say that ‘ou les reins pas p travail assez’

Les reins – derived from latin ‘rēnēs’ – means the kidneys, two bean shaped organs found in the abdomen whose main function is to purify blood from toxins.