Baxter cycler - strange failure

[Willis]

Over all I have not had any significant problems with my Baxter cycler. This morning however I had a strange alarm and failure. I was awakened by the triple-beep which I thought meant I had a kink in my line or needed to just turn over on my side. (When draining, if I'm on my back it will alarm frequently and just turning over usually fixes it without having to get out of bed.)

This time it wouldn't stop...so I get out of bed to look at the display and it says "Check supply line." It had started my final fill and got to about 200ml then alarmed. Never saw that before. Now the supply bag on the heater is usually quite low by this time so I thought maybe it was sucking air. So I picked up the bag and made sure the supply line had plenty of fluid (about 1200ml left). It then gave a message something like "Heating Supply." It's like it ran out of supply and lost its prime. So it tries again and repeats the "Check supply line" alarm. I checked all the lines and everything looked normal. No kinks or blockages that I could see. So I try to bypass the process and I can't get to the bypass command. After going round and round with this for about 5 cycles I finally just turned the machine off. I was reluctant to do that because I thought the therapy data would not get saved to the ProCard.

Now the interesting thing is that when I turned the machine back on it went in to a "Power Failure" recovery mode and gave me the option to continue or stop therapy. I chose to stop therapy and it appeared to save the data OK (blinking light) then displayed the End of Therapy message. All of this took me about 10 minutes to figure out and I didn't get my usual 1000ml day fill. But at least I got the dang machine to stop beeping! When finishing up and removing the cassette I examined it and I could see no blockages there (such as from fibrin) or in the other lines.

So it was a strange situation. In this case turning the cycler off and back on at least let me end the session. If it hadn't been on my final fill I'm not sure what my options would have been other than manual PD or setting up the cycler afresh and starting over (and then getting up later and bypassing the final few cycles).

 

[Joe]

Interesting Willis. I haven't seen anything like that with my cycler - at least not yet. Might want to give tech support a call and see if they have any insight into the situation. I'd be curious as to whether they have an answer to this.

[brenda seal]

Willis , Laurie has just started using a Fresenius Sleep -Safe machine . Every night it alarmed on the empty cycles  - Laurie sleeps on his back because of the arthritis but the machine insisted we needed to check the line , it does this unless he is sitting bolt upright . I have come up with a cunning plan to trick the machine so we can all get a good nights sleep .
 I have moved a recliner chair into the bedroom and Laurie hooks up at around 4 in the afternoon and sits in the recliner and watches TV , eats dinner and snoozes , as long as he sits upright on the empty cycle we get no alarms . Around 11 pm treatment is finished , we go to bed and get an uninterrupted sleep but sshhh don't tell the machine !
 This of course is no help to your situation but I feel so smug at tricking the damn thing I just had to share . I hope you resolve the problem for tonight's treatment and your cycler behaves itself - Good Luck .

[Willis]

I'm hoping this was a one-time event before calling tech support. 

I did have another issue about 9 months ago with the second bag. In my case it lays flat next to the machine. The connecting tubes on every bag have a distinct curve to them due to the way they are packed. When first starting out--for no particular reason--I always placed the 2nd bag with the printed side up. But one night, due to the curve in the supply tube, the level of the fluid fell below the opening so the cycler couldn't refill the bag on the heater. I fixed that problem by always putting the printed side down so the curve in the supply tube has the "top" of the curve up rather than down. Never had a problem since. So I recommend that the 2nd bag always be placed printed side down.

I may have to start doing the same thing to the heater bag...maybe the same thing happened and it started sucking air and lost its prime.

 

[Willis]

Willis , Laurie has just started using a Fresenius Sleep -Safe machine . Every night it alarmed on the empty cycles  - Laurie sleeps on his back because of the arthritis but the machine insisted we needed to check the line , it does this unless he is sitting bolt upright . I have come up with a cunning plan to trick the machine so we can all get a good nights sleep .
 I have moved a recliner chair into the bedroom and Laurie hooks up at around 4 in the afternoon and sits in the recliner and watches TV , eats dinner and snoozes , as long as he sits upright on the empty cycle we get no alarms . Around 11 pm treatment is finished , we go to bed and get an uninterrupted sleep but sshhh don't tell the machine !
 This of course is no help to your situation but I feel so smug at tricking the damn thing I just had to share . I hope you resolve the problem for tonight's treatment and your cycler behaves itself - Good Luck .

Usually if I just roll over to my side it drains OK. For my initial drain however, I usually stand or sit upright until it's done because--for some reason--I have low flow alarms on that first drain only more often than not. I rarely get such alarms on the other cycles. Also, even if I get in bed I'm still awake and feel the drain pain more on that initial drain; if standing, the pain is much less. My drain pain is very slight now and when I'm asleep it's not bad enough to wake me up anymore.

As for "tricking" the cycler, that sounds like a good plan. Unfortunately, I still work and often don't get home until 8 or 10pm. If I'm awake, I'm usually not at home. 

 

[jeannea]

It might not happen again. I had a few weird alarms with my cycler, maybe 3 in 2 years, and the only thing to do was turn it off. You might want to ask your nurse if she's heard of it but it's unlikely to repeat.

[deniferfer]

When I the baxter home choice I had it do some crazy alarms on me. But when I would call tech support they would just tell to turn it off and wait 10 secs and turn it back on. So i just stop calling them 1st and would just shut it down. If I couldn't get it to reset it self I would just say forget it for the night. Do a manual and the try again the next night. Almost always it would work just fine again. I think only once or twice did I ever have to get it replaced. 

[wbdoug]

Willis
I have had this problem 3 times now but it usually alarms during priming. The first two times this happened I could not find anything wrong and after several tries I just tossed everything and started over. The third time I did some investigating and found the problem. The frangible on one of the bags did not break properly and left the hole partially plugged. Now I check every time to make sure that there is no blockage.
Bill

[Willis]

Willis
I have had this problem 3 times now but it usually alarms during priming. The first two times this happened I could not find anything wrong and after several tries I just tossed everything and started over. The third time I did some investigating and found the problem. The frangible on one of the bags did not break properly and left the hole partially plugged. Now I check every time to make sure that there is no blockage.
Bill

Thanks. That's something I'll double-check if it ever happens again. So far, no more problems!

 

[tito]

wbdoug - I have had an awful problem with the frangibles on the Baxter green bags breaking incompletely. The whole through which the solution must pass is insufficiently large. I've reported this, sent them lot numbers, samples of the frangibles in question. Nothing ever changes, and this has been going on for about a year. When this happens, my choices are to break everything down and start over, or skip dialysis for the night. It's very frustrating, but now I know others have this same problem.

[wbdoug]

wbdoug - I have had an awful problem with the frangibles on the Baxter green bags breaking incompletely. The whole through which the solution must pass is insufficiently large. I've reported this, sent them lot numbers, samples of the frangibles in question. Nothing ever changes, and this has been going on for about a year. When this happens, my choices are to break everything down and start over, or skip dialysis for the night. It's very frustrating, but now I know others have this same problem.

Fortunately I have only had this problem maybe 4 times and not once since I started checking them every time.
Rather than start all over, why not just clamp off the suspect bag and replace only the one bag?

Bill

[Joe]

Interesting situation you bring up. I haven't had any problems with the Baxter bags, at least not yet. My frangables typically break clean and I can work them up the line so they are clear of the feed.

[retiredfed]

In my one year on the Baxter cycler, I've only had one bag with a bad frangible.  The annular was very narrow compared to the usually diameter of the hole.

The main problems I've have with the cycler have been what I believe to have been caused by bad cassettes that had failed to prime properly at various stages,  either: the red; the blue; or the white patient line.
The annular holes in the bags have been wide open when I had these priming problems.
I've sent the bad cassettes back to Baxter for QC inspection, but have never heard back.

[Willis]

I had a failure to prime again just a few nights ago. I have found the problem. It's always a green bag and it's in the plastic tip portion before the frangible section. I cut the end off and the bag drained fine. But looking through the tip portion I could see that the hole was almost completely blocked by a small piece of plastic. Next time I have a plan...I will sterilize the tip of an ice pick and punch the obstruction out and see if that does the trick before discarding the bag.

I contacted Baxter and told them of the issue and was forwarded to their QC dept and told "they'd call me back." Right. Still haven't heard back. And the check is in the mail. 

 

[JLM]

On my Liberty machine, after I break the cone (that's what we call it) I have to wiggle the tube until it drops into the solution bag.  It floats to the top of the bag and stays outta the way.

[KAF454]

When the frangible breaks wrong on a Baxter bag it fails to fully open the orifice so dialysate can flow through. It wouldn't matter if you worked the loose section of frangible up into the bag. What did NOT break loose is the culprit. And every time it's happened to me it's been a green bag.

[JLM]

The only experience I've had with Baxter is last summer in Wisconsin when I did manuals in a clinic up there.  There wasn't a Fresenius clinic within 90 miles, so ......., and we were there for 3 months.

[tito]

I've had many problems with the frangibles on Baxter bags breaking incompletely. I report this every time and have shipped many of the culprits back to them, but nothing is ever done.

A couple of days ago, they called me saying a delivery was coming the next day. I cancelled it and called my PD clinic - nobody there had ordered anything. Despite cancelling it, the order still came.

Baxter has a lot of problems. Won't even get into the delivery problems to my place in Mexico!

[HouseOfDialysis]

I've had only a few cone failures so to speak. Over 18 months on dialysis, the most frustrating event was I was trying to prime the lines and nothing would flow out into the drain line. After tens of times futzing with every VISIBLE barrier, I took everything out and off. Sure enough the molded tube that carries liquid from the cassette out of the drain line had a bubble of plastic right at the point of drain. A defect in molding, likely.

Threw it out, started over, worked fine.

My other hold ups with priming have been me forgetting to snap cones.

[Joe]

I've had the failure to snap off the frangable problem too, but that is one you don't repeat often.

[HouseOfDialysis]

Usually for me, that is the last bag around 3am. Sound familiar, anyone?

[billybags]

We have got half way through my husbands dialysis and the alarms have been going off. After the first time this happened, "found out we had an air bubble in the cassette" it took Baxter's help line about an hour to say abandon it. It has happened since and we just scrap every thing and start again. It is the cassettes that are our problem.