I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Dialysis Discussion => Dialysis: Home Dialysis => Topic started by: Whamo on November 04, 2017, 12:42:55 PM
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My nurse did a home inspection yesterday. She told me I'd be getting a new Baxter machine that talks. Has anyone been using one like this yet? Are they cool?
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I haven't heard anything about that, but my first thought was, "What if I want my machine to shut up?"
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I have heard of it. It's called the Amia or Amla. I don't want a cycler that talks to me. I'm holding out for one that doesn't require bags of fluid. I hear that's in the pipeline.
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And I thought the beeping hemp (should be hemo) machines were annoying, dear god they are going to have them nagging us next. Take your binders, watch your fluid, ..... holy crap it would be worse than being married.
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And I thought the beeping hemp machines were annoying, dear god they are going to have them nagging us next. Take your binders, watch your fluid, ..... holy crap it would be worse than being married.p
or worse - like being married to a RN - lol ;D ;D ;D
:bump; (push the button Max)
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And I thought the beeping hemp machines were annoying
Can you provide details on these hemp machines? My state recently legalized the heathen devil weed.
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New Apple auto correction changed hemo into hemp. So embarrassing.
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I think more patients would consider dialysis if they could get hemp dialysis!
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I had the munchies so bad after hemo last night that it might as well have been hemp dialysis.
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:secret; :secret; :secret; :secret; You have no idea! My Alexa already talks to the television, and now my dialysis machine and her are going to chat. My nurse says the lady on the machine gives you proper procedures. In other words, nag, nag, nag. :Kit n Stik;
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She told me I'd be getting a new Baxter machine that talks.
Made me think of Talkie Toaster.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRq_SAuQDec
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:birthday; Put another candle on my birthday cake. I fed a giraffe the other day at the Living Desert in Palm Desert. Oh, I got to see the new machine in action. A Baxter "educator" demonstrated the machine to another patient, her husband, and myself. It's smaller, lighter, and has a screen. The cassette goes on the side instead of the front. It's similar but different. I'm ordering the new kind of cassette today. It comes with a 22-foot cord so you will have room to move. The bag goes inside a cover. There are no more flow sheets. The machine records everything and sends it real time to your doctor. So, instead of reviewing your records once a month, he or she can look it up anytime. They've already updated the software, and they plan on improving it more in the future.
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Sounds interesting. And happy birthday of course
:birthday; :birthday; :bestwishes; :beer1; :cheer:
Lots of love, luck and strength, Cas
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:twocents; I trained on the new machine yesterday. I have another session on Sunday and then it's showtime. Baxter is late delivering the new cassettes. The cassettes connect on the side instead of the front. The machine opens up so you can load a bag. The lines are easy to tangle up. The talking and processing takes up a lot of time. I'm afraid my dialysis will go from ten and half hours to twelve. We'll see. It seems to take forever to prime. It just got cold here in San Bernardino. It was 80 yesterday. Winter starts on Thursday. It's like fall never came except for the shorter days. Trump said merry christmas he has a present for us -- a trillion dollars more of debt to fund tax savings for the top .1% They get 80% of the benefits. Do the math.
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I trained on the new machine yesterday, again. It takes too long to setup. The worst part is that the lines get tangled up if you're not careful. My dialysis lasts 10 1/2 hours now. With this new machine it's easily going to take 11 or even 12. I don't like it at all.
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My nurse included a flow sheet. Why should I bother with that if they take my blood pressure, twice, and weight, during the dialysis? Why fill it out when it's already on computer?
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My nurse included a flow sheet. Why should I bother with that if they take my blood pressure, twice, and weight, during the dialysis? Why fill it out when it's already on computer?
Maybe incase its not transmitting correctly? Do you have a modern phone with a camera? Can you take a photo of the screen and save that just incase? Also good if you need to pull it up at an office visit.
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Sorry, dude, I am an oldie. I use phones to talk and that's about it. I prefer the old phones. They don't cause brain tumors.
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:puke; :puke; :puke; :puke; I've had four cassette breakdowns this last week. It's a lot of work to throw away three fluid bags, the cassette, and drain bag(s). I want my old machine back!
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I asked my clinic if the is a way to bypass the voice commands. We do not have the machines yet but they want to get them for those that do not live near the clinic. I live 350 mile away. If we are having to waste bags that will not be good. May last order was short 12 boxes of fluid and the clinic said that the problem was going to continue for a while. Good luck and I hope it works out.
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Wow, I went to vascular radiology or whatever for a leg ultra-sound. They said my right leg's BP was 213, and that I should report to the ER. Fat chance of that. My BP was 177 when I got home, high, as it was 155 this morning. I guess having two young girls massage and/or zap my legs got the blood to boil. Who knows? My modem is an old-fashioned one. I've tried two of them, same result. My nurse wants me to call Baxter, but I alread did. All they did was send me another modem, identical to my other two. I do a daily drain, and then dwell for 3 or 4 hours before I start my 9 1/2 hour nighttime drains and fulls. Our ER is a mad house, literally. I go to the Urgent Care or call my regular doctor for an appointment instead. I flashed hard the other day and got a few writing ideas. My time-share salesman at Disneyland gets fired from his night-time janitor job for saving someone with a heart attack. He decides to start greeting people at the gate, and giving a lot of hugs. He goes viral, and people all over the world come to hug the salesman.
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I'm used to the new machine now. I like it. It's easier to use in the long run. I've been doing the 1 mile walking express on youtube (free). I like the routine, and I feel better. :beer1;
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Good to hear Whamo :thumbup;
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:Kit n Stik; It's good news, bad news, today. My vascular surgeon didn't cut me open, thank the Lord. I found out that my right leg is at 80% circulation and the left leg is 70%. She put me on baby asprin, and told me to walk to the point of pain to build new arteries. My big toe boil has healed up, so, take the good with the bad.
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Wish I could say good things but after 4 nights we went back to the Home Choice Pro. My wife is a slow drain and the machine is not equipped to handle this situation properly. Unlike the HomeChoice there is no manual drain feature. If you drain slowly (less than 50 ml a minute), the unit puts a slow drain warning on the screen. If you continue to stay slow you get an occasional beep with a highlighted screen, if you continue longer it stops, goes into continual beeping and you have to make a choice to retry or end that cycle and go to the next step in your program.
Also during that warning phase, the unit goes into a process that puts a little of your dialysis fluid in you and turns around and drains. This can cause an early depletion of your fluid depending how long this is going on and what cycle you are in. Now the HomeChoice also does this but you can hit the stop button on the HomeChoice and go to a manual drain mode. This will not go through the routine of adding fluid into you and in my estimation provides a better drain process.
Because of these drain issues a full drain during one of our tidal cycles took almost 60 minutes as I sat there continuing to instruct the unit to drain. We finished her treatment last night 90 minutes past the projected treatment cycle. I also found that the machine has no way of showing you your current UF when in a specific cycle. It can only show past cycles. For most this isn't a big issue but with a slow drain person on the machine, the up to date UF allows me to know when it's time to end the manual drain process.
We talked to Baxter and her PD nurse and have come to the conclusion that the lack of manual drains is a real shortfall in this new cycler. If you are a slow drainer and use manuals to make sure you are dry, this machine is not for you.
It's also very detailed and once you gain experience with it, the step by step display and confirmation pushes on the screen will drive you crazy. Oh and also it requires you to enter in your current blood pressure readings, weight, blood sugar level, temperature, prior to disconnecting. Our dialysis provider is going to convert all HomeChoice patients to this new machine, but it's not for everybody.
Jack
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Interesting. My nurse increased my number of cycles from four to five in ten hours. I usually drink some water for slow drain signals, but tonight it was impossible. After four cycles I halted the treatment. My UF was 1,400. Usually it's around 2,000. I didn't want to call my nurse in the middle of the night. I looked up protocol in the manual and found no help. It just said call your kidney center. I'm dry so if I start a new cycle I know I will have problems. I'll call my nurse in the morning. I hate to bother her on a Sunday. I think I've been draining too much water. The last two or three nights I experienced cramps. I got through it by drinking water and/or fresca with ice.
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My hubby has been using the Amia since July 2017, so I have a few comments about it:
1. UNBEKNOWNST to our PD nurse and not well documented in the Manual is a feature that lets him do a final Manual Drain. On the Treatment Complete screen, press Treatment Options
button and then the Reduce Fill Volume button to do a final drain. Lordy, I hope they never take away this feature.
2. The voice can be turned off - there's a button on the front of the machine.
3. We set it to "Advanced User Mode" to reduce some of the screens and therefore some of the time wasted in setting up. This is better, but it could go so much further. It needs to mature.
4. It's error handling is not very robust: If it encounters an error, it directs us to Power Down and start everything all over, which takes another half hour.
5. It's crazy fussy about putting the patient line into the patient holder - just so - before it can proceed.
We've had to have the machine replaced twice and they are quick about getting a replacement to us (special courier).
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Can you give me the pages in the manual that cover this?
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Hi Whamo -
Pages 182 - 183 talk about "Reduce Fill Volume", which is the "Final or Manual Drain" to us. Our PD Nurse said this feature is there for folks who do an all-day fill and just want to drain some off before disconnecting (hence, the obscure-to-me label). I hope they don't figure out that the feature is there for all to choose.
Pages 231 - 244 talk about the "Advanced User Mode", and it is selected via page 216.
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Thanks Marilee, I did an initial drain, no fluid, and stopped the drain phase. I read the manual until I found it. :yahoo;
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Excellent! Now you know how to drain outside of the cycles - before AND after.
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Another way to deal with this is by upping the UF expectations on the initial and final drains. This will prompt you to deal with slow drain since the unit will prompt you since it hasn't reached the program drain thresholds. Once you determine you have gotten all the fluid out, you can then choose the option to end the drain and go to the next cycle.
My problem with this machine is that I don't believe the estimated fluid levels that the machine thinks that are in you. In many cases I'm finding that even with upping the UF drain expectations, I'm finding that my wife is completely drained, but the unit will say she has as much as 300-400 ml in her. For example the last time we used the new cycler i drained her as much as possible. We did all the repositioning etc. Machine said she had 300 ml still in her. So when it came time to fill her with her final extraneal bag, I cut the fill off when the fill indicator said she had 2000 ml in her. At that point I replaced the Amia with her Home Choice Pro. That night I did the initial drain and did our manual drains to make sure she was empty. We only were able to get 1,750 out and from my experience I know she was completely drained. That means the Amia's estimate of fluid in her was off by 250 ml. I know she didn't absorb 250 ml of Extraneal. We've never seen absorption of that fluid. Quite honestly I don't trust the metering numbers that the Amia displays and I question making any kind of judgements on a slow drain patient based on the estimated peritoneal fill numbers.
What's also troubling is the process of handling slow drains and the amount of time the machine takes in trying to correct what it considers of line occlusions, which in somepeople who are slow drainers, is a matter of how the peritoneal line was placed by the surgeon, not occlusions. My recommendation is that if you are a slow drain person during normal tidal therapy and in initial and final drains, don't move to the Amia hardware. Stay with your Home Choice Pro. You will have fewer alarms, your therapy cycle time will be better controlled, and you will be assured that you are empty on full drains. To me Baxter took a step backwards with the Amia at its current programming for patients who are exceptions in the draining process.
Jack
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I'm just starting PD. I'll be training on the Amia machine. I'm young so I should get the hang of it quickly.
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I've had slow drain problems in the two months I've been using the machine too. I also had problems with the cassettes failing the last priming test. Lately, however, things have been going well. Knock on wood. Just as you think things are copasetic something goes wrong. My Baxter trainer said a new software update is in development. I'd like to see them get rid of the window that says the expected outcome came out wrong near the end. Every time I've gotten the therapy it's come up. My nurse says to just ignore it. Why do they tell us to call our kidney center because of it? When I do they ignore it. WTF? Actually I feel great despite my health problems. Must be the PQQ, Coq10 (ubinol), tumeric, and other supplements I take. :yahoo; :yahoo; :yahoo;