Question for PD transplant recipients

[bleija]

Now I know when you get a transplant, they leave the dialysis access, but my question is... would they or could they even use it considering u just had surgery. and if they need to use do they flush it or how does that work, i thought about this last night. how does that work

[highway61]

When I got my transplant in March they left my PD catheter in until May 24th. They didn't so anything with it. I suppose I could have used it if necessary since nothing was done to it. It was just there.

[bleija]

wouldnt it have grown over and been completely useless if they did need it... i know u can go one night w/o using it but i dnt know how long it would be usablebefoer it would be a waste of space, and does it end up being an extra surgery to have it removed, idk i would almost wanna get it removed the same time as the transplant save myself but thats just my thought

[mcclane]

wouldnt it have grown over and been completely useless if they did need it... i know u can go one night w/o using it but i dnt know how long it would be usablebefoer it would be a waste of space, and does it end up being an extra surgery to have it removed, idk i would almost wanna get it removed the same time as the transplant save myself but thats just my thought

for my first transplant, I was on PD.  I did a manual exchange in the morning and the call came in.  I never had time to do another exchange as I had to high tail it to the hospital.

I was told they drained out the PD fluid while I was under, they did the transplant, and it functioned right away.  They left the catheter in for a while as highway61 mentioned - I can't remember the exact time frame though.  They leave it in for abit just in case the transplanted kidney doesn't work right away or something bad happens.   So yes, it is an extra surgery to have it removed, but it is a day surgery.  The hole itself does heal over in time, but not quite completely, it is like a belly button, the hole does mend over but you can tell where your belly button is, same with the hole where the pd catheter used to be.

[jeannea]

I had my PD catheter for about 6 weeks after transplant. The day after transplant they had me do another manual drain because I still had pretty much fluid. When I came home I kept putting on gentamycin ointment to keep it from getting an infection. About 3 weeks after transplant I went to dialysis and the nurse changed my extension and flushed it (about 200 mL in then a drain) for me. They leave it in case the kidney doesn't work and you need dialysis. Probably for the first week after your operation it would hurt too much to do PD but at least you wouldn't have to have another surgery to put it back in. The nephrologists at my transplant center didn't even think I needed a flush. But my extension started looking icky so I went in anyway.

[brandywine]

They took my catheter out when they put the new kidney in. They said there was only a 2-3 % chance that I would need it after surgery, so they just take it out at the same time. Since I reacted so bad to anesthesia this time, I really appreciate that.