Peritoneal dialysis and Neck pain at night during exchanges ……any help? Asking for my mother

[Fight2016]

Reaching out to this expert community to see if anyone has any experience and advice so I can help my mother. She has been on peritoneal dialysis for about 3-4years. Her exchanges happen at night on machine (not manually). Most recently she has been dealing with pretty significant neck pain. That happens almost like clockwork at 2am. No improvement with Tylenol, pillow change, rubbing neck. She had similar neck pain before she started dialysis. They have been adjusting the type of fluid she uses within the last 1-2 months as she wasn’t filtering as well as she used to and was worried her membranes were starting to fail. Any suggestion? Any home remedies? Anything I can do to help her?

[Hidden]

Oh my gosh! I dealt with severe neck and shoulder pain from June until early August, this past summer. A heating pad was very helpful, but it was chiropractics and a consultation with a physical therapist who gave me a series of exercises to do that was the real solution. I did get some relief from extra strength Tylenol. I suspect that the pain was brought on, at least in part, due to my constant checking of where I was in the PD cycle. I had had hernia surgery in prior months and was instructed to use the bathroom when my peritoneum had emptied of dialysate. I was not to walk around with a belly full of it. I think I was craning my neck to see the screen of my machine and this is what lead to the worst pain I have ever experienced. I hope something of my story resonates and is helpful. I wish your mother full recovery !

[Fight2016 in reply to Hidden]

thanks so much! I will pass this info on to my mother. I think she would be open to physical therapy! I appreciate you !

[Jada6 in reply to Fight2016]

I agree that a neck adj from a chiropractor would help so much but many do not understand how this works and are afraid to go or don't have insurance. I'm 67 and my first visit was when I was 24. My neck hurt so much. A friend told me about someone. Maybe you have a friend who can recommend someone.

[LeslieK]

that is unfortunate that she is experiencing pain in the middle of the night.

I never had neck pain but I did have a significant amount of moderate shoulder pain at the end of the last cycle drain. I also had cramps when the end of each phase drained. Apparently the diaphragm reverberates nerve pain to the shoulder that feels like a gas bubble pain. I couldn’t find any relief from that either. They did lower the full volume to 1500 and that somewhat helped. Sometimes laying flat with my knees bent helped or sitting straight up. Very uncomfortable for your Mother to have this on top of dealing with the PD home responsibility. The heating pad helped so maybe try that.