Dialysis

Transcript

As kidney disease worsens over the years, at about 15% of kidney function or less, you start to develop the symptoms of kidney disease, which include shortness of breath, leg swelling, weakness, fatigue, poor appetite, and electrolyte imbalances. At that point, your doctor will offer dialysis. And dialysis can be done in one of three ways. Now, irrespective of the form of dialysis you pick, I want you all to understand that dialysis by no means fixes the kidneys. It merely takes the place of the kidneys because your kidneys aren’t working anymore. In-center hemodialysis. This type of dialysis is done at a facility, a dialysis center. It takes place three times a week, either Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Each session is four hours. And what they do on hemodialysis, hemo means blood, is take the blood out of you, put it in a machine, clean it for you, then return it back to you. Now this machine removes toxins, balances electrolytes, and takes off any excess fluid on your body. Now, in order for them to do this, they will need access to a large amount of blood.

This can be done in one of two ways. One is a fistula in the arm, which is a creation by a surgeon, which will allow two needles to go in the arm. One to take the blood out, the other to put blood back in. The other is a catheter in the neck. The catheter is essentially like a tube that comes out of your chest area right here. And it has two ports. And those two ports serve the same purpose. Now the other two forms of dialysis I’m about to mention can actually be done at home. What’s great about that is it leaves the patient with more autonomy, for work and lifestyle issues. Now, when you do dialysis at home, you’re never actually alone. You have access to a nurse 24/7, and the machines are typically small and portable, which allows you to travel. Home hemodialysis.

This is very similar to in-center. It involves blood, but instead it’s done at home. The dialysis machine is smaller and the schedule is completely different. Instead of three times a week, it’s five times a week, but the sessions are only two and a half hours. You will typically need someone at home for support when you’re on dialysis to make sure that you’re doing okay, like a family member or close friend. Peritoneal dialysis. Now this one is completely different than the other two. And that involves no blood or needles. What it does involve though, is a catheter tube placed in your abdomen or belly area. And the way it works is you take a big bag of fluid, drain that fluid directly into your belly, that clean fluid sits there in your belly, and uses your internal organs like a filter for removing toxins and extra fluid.

Now, after several hours of sitting there, it’s drained out. Now you can do this several times a day, which means you’re doing it manually, but most people choose to do this with the help of a machine, a cycler. This machine sits next to your bed on a nightstand at night. It’s about the size of an old school VCR. So the way it works is, you go to bed at night, you connect yourself to this machine. The machine already has big bags of clean fluid on it that you’ve already placed. Then over the course of the night, while you sleep, over about eight hours or so, the machine pushes fluid into your belly and then pulls fluid out, push the fluid in, pulls fluid out. Very gentle. And then in the morning, when you wake up, you simply disconnect yourself from the machine.