Dialysis: It's a Matter of Life

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Dialysis: It's a Matter of Life
-Dr.Dianne McCallister, Chief Medical Officer at Porter Adventist Hospital

Have you ever considered what would happen if your kidneys quit working? The kidneys are organs in our bodies that remove waste and keep our fluid levels in balance.

These often-ignored organs are critical to staying alive, so what happens when they stop?

This is where dialysis, a procedure in which an artificial kidney removes waste and excess fluid from our bodies, becomes life-saving.

The kidneys can quit functioning, or lose so much function that they dont adequately take care of our waste and water control for many different reasons.

Some causes are temporary, associated with an acute illness, severe dehydration, or from traumatic injuries.

In this case, dialysis is used to keep a person alive until the kidneys recover and start functioning again.

In other cases, the same insults can cause a permanent shut down of the kidneys.

Other reasons for kidneys shutting down include such illnesses as kidney diseases, diabetes, ingestion of certain poisons and auto-immune disorders.

When the kidneys shut down, people can die in a matter of days without dialysis.

There are two types of dialysis, hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis.

In hemodialysis, a persons blood is shunted through tubing through an artificial kidney - or dialysis machine. Waste products and excess water are removed and a persons body chemistry is brought back to normal.

In peritoneal dialysis, a solution is put into a persons abdominal cavity and through a process called osmosis, the liquid in the abdomen absorbs the waste and excess fluid. This corrects the chemistry in the persons blood.

Patients undergoing dialysis do have symptoms from the treatment. Surgeons put in access ports to make the fluid exchange possible. Many patients also experience issues such as dizziness, cramping and nausea, particularly when they first begin to have the treatments. These patients have to follow a special diet. In addition, patients with end stage renal disease are more prone to problems with their heart and blood vessels, high blood pressure and also problems with calcium/osteoporosis.

Dialysis is very expensive, but without it, a person cannot live, so it is a great investment. In the United States, the government, through Medicare, pays for about 80 percent of the costs of chronic dialysis.

Dialysis will continue for the rest of a patients life unless they are able to get a kidney transplant.

Some kidney disease is not preventable, however, there are many things that can be done.

First of all, get regular check-ups because kidney problems caught early can be treated with diet and blood pressure control. In addition, you should work with your physician to detect diabetes and if you have it, to control it. Also, excellent control of blood pressure helps to prevent kidney disease.

Finally, drinking 8 glasses of water daily helps you stay hydrated.

Dr. McCallister is on 7NEWS at 11 a.m. every Wednesday. If you have a topic or question you would like her to discuss, email 11am@thedenverchannel.com.