HOME HEMODIALYSIS

From a letter published in Binah Magazine. As with all medical issues, please discuss all options with your doctor

I’d like to make people who are waiting for a transplant aware of something that can be life-saving in the interim.

Whilw waiting for a transplant, home-hemodialysis is a much better option than standard (three times a week) in-center hemodialysis. Home-hemodialysis, which offers two options—a short daily program and an extended nocturnal program---gives people much better survival rates than center-based dialysis.

While the dismal three-times-a-week, center based survival rate is an issue discussed by nephrologists and government research agencies, little is being done about it. Standard dialysis is indescribably stressful and leaves the patient exhausted beyond description and drained well into the next day. It is also extremely taxing on the heart (the bleak survival rates mentioned before are mostly the result of cardiac issues).

In addition to the better survival rates, people on a daily or nightly home-dialysis feel much better, and are allowed to eat potassium-rich food, and are generally not limited to a restricted diet.