Thread: Kidney Disase

My Father in Law lived with it for about 7-8 years before he passed away, His wife worked at a hospital and looked after him at home. It didnt restrict him too much on what he wanted to do, obviously a bit more planning is involved with outings, but we went out to restaurants and had days out doing things as a family with his grandkids. At the end of the day a lot of it comes down to the persons attitude towards their situation. Stay positive and encourage them not to lock themselves away at home.
Cheers Ian

Sorry to hear about this problem but one of my uncles was on this system for around 20 years. Although he was retired from farming he was able to drive, go shopping, go on holidays etc as long as he hooked himself up to the bags. He even drove whilst hooked up, driving from Sydney to Narromine, a 5 hr drive. Of course he was limited to a degree but it never really stopped him from doing most things. You get used to having limitatations but the system worked well. The only drawback with holidays is that the car was full of boxes containing the fluid bags. A couple of times he was running low on bags and the supplier delivered them to him at home or on holidays. Certainly beats dialisis in hospital. Jim

Hi Didiman

My wife is a nurse and she stated that home dialysis can be connected at night, they are not very noisy and shouldn't disturb the patients sleep.
Then through the day the patient's day time movement isn't restricted.

She said it's important that if the patient has any concerns at all about the machines usage, they must refer back to their dialysis nurse, as they should work together on this.

To run the dialysis while away from home, the units are portable and don't draw much power, so I think a pure sinewave inverter properly set up, should be able to handle that task.

After reading Jim's post, it look likes the dialysis unit is able to be run off a 12 volt supply, then there is no need for an inverter.
.

Hi Arthur. I thought the home dialysis machine was different to the bags.
The machine seems to use heaps of water and no use to people on rain water tanks.
(Except if it stays like this)

I think you are refering to Peritoneal Dialysis which uses the peritoneum in the abdomen to remove toxins, as opposed to Haemodialysis which remotely filters the blood.


Cheers, Mick.

Originally Posted by mick88

I think you are refering to Peritoneal Dialysis which uses the peritoneum in the abdomen to remove toxins, as opposed to Haemodialysis which remotely filters the blood.

I think it's peritoneal dialysis too, it's not at all common in Europe, but I've met one or two people over the years that were being treated in this way. Mobility usually doesn't suffer so much, but AFAIK the biggest drawbacks are that it's not as efficient as haemodialysis, and strict hygiene must be maintained as infections can be quite common (and debilitating) otherwise. Seems to be used in countries such as Australia, where the nearest hospital isn't just a matter of popping round the corner....