Kidney transplant

[woodworking]

Hi everyone! My husband had a kidney transplant on July 2nd of this year. His donated kidney is doing good, but he's not. His RBC, hmg keep going real low. He has to have blood transfusion every two weeks. He is week, no energy. Has anyone else had problems after kidney transplant? If so how long does it last?

For all of you that are caregivers, may good bless you and keep you strong.

I am my husbands caregiver, and there are days I want to go outside and scream.

[Dara3351]

I am 10 months post transplant and after each blood test my meds were changed according to my labs. Diet is key as well as water. This is a major surgery and it takes time for the body to adjust. I have gone through ups and downs as well. You have to stay positive and feel free to ask questions of the team. After 4 months of transplant I began to have vomiting episodes. I kept asking the team could it be my gallbladder and never got an answer. The vomiting episodes continued and my nephrologist had an ultrasound on my liver and gallbladder. After a month I still had not heard what the results were. My family DR sent me to a GI specialist and I was being monitored. I also did a food sensitivity test and found out I had to eliminate 7 foods which surprisingly were chicken, pineapple, asparagus, egg whites, crab, ginger and garlic. Well I had another episode on the weekend so I went to the ER. I was admitted and had an endoscopy done because of a blocked bile duct. Two days later I had my gall bladder removed. So please stay on top of the Doctors. Ask them what is a good diet to increase the hemoglobin. Hang in there...This is normal.

[Gardner-NY]

Hello woodworking, My spouse got his transplant 11/2018 and the first 2 mos were great and since Feb to now, he's had a rejection of organ and that resolved, and major low hemoglobin problems despite my giving him 'retrocrit' shots 3X a week from Mar-Sept and finally his hemoglobin in mid Sept was 13 and sometimes 14 (above 10 is the goal). He had extreme fatigue and could do almost nothing at all while I worked full time at my job (he's retired) due to fatigue so low. The kidney makes a hormone that goes to the bone marrow to tell it to make more hemoglobin. The kidneys do more than filter the blood. Many people seem to forget all they do which is a miracle. the transplant team did not want to do blood transfusions for my spouse. We've been married over 40 yrs , no kids, and not near family but have friends which I seldom will call on for their lives are insanely busy with small kids, commute to work far, and elder care. I on occasion will ask for their help, like Jan 3 when I learned how for the 1st time to use our snowblower. We live in a northern cold climate and snow does not leave us til late April. I am now "snowblower queen" and good at it. A great workout too! My mental attitude has to change when there is a chore , not fun to do, but I just do it with a smile. it helps. I see my counselor every month and get a massage (I have a bad back) every 3-4 wks and do a few other things, but getting enough sleep is paramount for the stress I Have felt all year. Now the new problem is my spouse got the CMV virus from the donated kidney (which is filtering blood great and we are thankful), so Aug to Nov he was on 'valycyte' drug high dose and in Nov the virus went away and valcyte reduced. The biggest issue now is low white blood count from CMV and NOW low white count due to meds. I could write a book at this point, but write me anytime. The one thing I have learned on this website is: everyone's journey is very very different. Feb-Sept my husband's hemoglobin was low and finally 'woke up' . His doctors told him it could take a year for the new kidney to do "all it should do".

WRite me anytime here. Do you have others to help you at home since your spouse cannot do many things now? This will get better, but I wish I could say when.

Merry Merry Christmas!

[Gardner-NY]

Hello again Woodworking: yes, go outside and scream. I do that too! no kidding