Feeling sick during and after dialysis

[Mgt8]

Well, after a year of dialysis i have discovered what makes me feel sick and how to solve it!

Thought I'd share it in case it rings a bell with anyone else.....

I used to use a chart for setting my nxstage machine where the UF rate was calculated in blocks: 0- 0.5, 0.6-1.0...........etc...

The problem with this was, if I was at the lower end of the scale, e.g. 0.6, then it all used to come off in the first hour or 2, making me feel sick and dizzy during or after dialysis....i had thought this was just what dialysis did and had to put up with it.

However, after a chat with my home haemo team.....we reset the machine and now I calculate the UF rate adding the washback. Now the amount I set to come off, comes off evenly over the whole 4 hours, making it a breeze! And no sickness!

It's made such a difference to me, I hope it helps someone else too....

Best wishes, Margaret

[Philipjm]

Hi Margaret,

Know how you feel, recently had to go into my local dialysis unit to retrace an access point and my machine was set to take 8 litres per hour instead of 0.8, after half an hour 2 litres taken off and I was very poorly, spoken sorted with a 3 litre load of saline.

On my nxstsge machine I was taught to add 0.3 to my weight loss required and divide by 3 and set my loss per hour for that amount so works perfectly every time.

In Feb having an iPad addition which provides a digital readout of data with alive feed back to my dialysis unit, this is trial so interesting to see how it goes.

Hoping to start nocturnal dialysis in February.

Best wishes Philip

[KidneyCoach]

It would also help to extend your time so any fluid removed is done so over a longer time reducing or eliminating any "sick feeling" (drop in blood pressure, nausea, dizziness, light headedness, headaches, fatigue, washed-out) of removing fluid too quickly over too short of an amount of time. Blessings