NxStage & Battery Back Up?

[justjen321]

Hola Kidney people!

My husband will be going to Home Hemo Nocturnal in a few months, and because I'm a crazed lunatic planner, I got to thinking about power outages this morning. We live in a very, very rural area, and we usually have at least a few power outages in the winter months. We have a fantastic generator, and recently just got our house wired so that all we have to do is plug our house into the generator, and bam! power restored.

In talking with the nurses, I understand that hemo is NOT similar to PD in the event of a power outage, and there isn't much time to restore power before you have to stop dialysis.

Now that I've gone round the entire bush, does anyone have their NxStage plugged into a battery back up? I searched the threads, but most of what I found was very old, and mostly about CAPD. (Our current modality).

I'm unsure if the NxStage draws more power, etc etc, and would love to hear from anyone who uses a battery back up for theirs. How long does it power your machine? I need probably a half an hour to get my house back up and running on my generator, and I would truly LOVE to go into Nocturnal Hemo feeling like I can keep him running even if our power goes out.

Thanks in advance. 

Jen

[lmunchkin]

Well Jen, I do Nxstage but not Nocturnal.  I believe it is called "Extended" for NxStage. Now back to back up with power outage, we had our electricity go out 2 times while on dialysis.  Both times, I just did a manual rinseback and stopped it all together.  That is the beauty of doing it at home. If you are doing him short-everyday sessions, you will know that with outages, you can just stop it and continue all over the next day.

NxStage reguires a 110 plug just like every other appliance you have. If you have a power failure, they will train you as to what you need to do in those cases, which I was trained to do a manual rinseback.  That way, his blood is not sitting in the machine clotting.  If its been in the machine too long, they will also show you how to leave it and disconnect without return to his body.  He will just be short some blood, that so far has not happed to me, thank God.

Im not familiar with the Nocturnal side of it, but know there are some on here that do.  I imagine it would be the same for nocturnal as it is for short daily.  Now if you are doing Nocturnal with Baby K, I believe that requires a special Receptacle, but not sure about that.

Hope this helps, Jen.

lmunchkin
 

[justjen321]

lmunchkin, you always have some good advice.

I think I understand the concept of a rinseback (although let's be clear, we haven't STARTED training, I'm just incredibly nosey, and I read as much as I possibly can to be informed BEFORE I take on something new, so feel free to correct me if I misstate stuff!) It's just returning the blood that is out to the cleaners, yeah?

The thing is, I'm uhm.. shall we say 'High Type A'? I don't want to have to do a rinseback. I want the power to go out, the battery back up to beep me awake, keep his machine running, while I run outside and plug my house into the generator. Then I want to go back to sleep, and unhook him in the morning! Not because it really probably HAS to be that way, but because my Type A-ism will twitch like crazy if it doesn't work that way.

Jen

[cattlekid]

are you going to be using bags or the PureFlow?  You may not know the answer to that yet.  If you are planning on using the PureFlow, you'll need to be aware that there will be two plugs - one for the cycler and one for the PureFlow.  So your battery backup will need to be able to power both machines.  Especially because if the PureFlow is without power for a certain length of time, you'll have to dump the batch and start all over again. 

[justjen321]

Thank you, cattlekid! That's good to know.

I'd love to use Pureflow, and we've taken a water sample in to be tested, so we may have an answer to that sooner rather than later.

 

[Razman]

  You can use battery backup  box called an Uninterpretable Power Supply ( UPS )  .   These are used to backup computers but could be used on a dialysis machine.  Nexstage can tell you the power required but I would think that a  850-1250  Watt  supply would work.  Cost would be under $600 .  Go to a computer store or  look up WEB page for  UPS.  I work for a division of Eaton that makes the equipment.  Hope this helps.     I know that the new  dialysis machines that used in Canada come with a internal UPS. 

[justjen321]

Yay! Thank you, Razman. I'm headed to Google now.

Jen

[lmunchkin]

FYI Cattlekid, I found out awhile back that there is a shorter cord that hooks to the cycler and the PureFlow then one cord leading to plug. My training nurse stopped by one day to see how we were doing (lives close to us) and noticed I had two cords plugged in to the outlet.  He got to looking and showed me that all I needed was the one plug.

I know, its like, what the heck, this whole time I have been using up energy on two plugs?  Just look on the back of both and I think you will see what Im talking about.  Let me know if you can't see it and I will gladly type you through it.

lmunchkin
 

[kporter85db]

FYI Cattlekid, I found out awhile back that there is a shorter cord that hooks to the cycler and the PureFlow then one cord leading to plug. My training nurse stopped by one day to see how we were doing (lives close to us) and noticed I had two cords plugged in to the outlet.  He got to looking and showed me that all I needed was the one plug.

I know, its like, what the heck, this whole time I have been using up energy on two plugs?  Just look on the back of both and I think you will see what Im talking about.  Let me know if you can't see it and I will gladly type you through it.

lmunchkin
 

lmunchkin, I hate to break this to you but you are still using the same amount of energy. You are just drawing enough energy for both machines through the one plug.

[amanda100wilson]

I would have thought that it would be safer to use more than one outlet to spread the load.

[willowtreewren]

Jen, I'm a type A personality! 

We had a gasoline generator, which we had on-the-ready when we were having bad thunderstorms around treatment time. I never had to use it.

There is a reset on the NxStage machine for when the power returns in under 2 minutes. That happened once.

But like Lmunchkin said, manual rinse back....   The beauty of NxStage is that you are doing it daily so there isn't this sense of doom if you have to cut a treatment short. So, in this case, if your power goes out, do a manual rinse back and then go back to sleep. There is a 2 minute window for getting your machine up and running before the blood clots. I'd rather do the rinse back than have to go outside to get the generator going. Easy-peasy from my type-A vantage point.

Aleta

[lmunchkin]

Thanks Kporter, but I did know that.  I just dont want many cords coming out of wall, so confusing sometimes.  But yes, I knew that. By the way, how is the PD coming?

Its been awhile since we did PD, but forgot what we did if power outage happened.  What do you do if it happens to you!

lmunchkin