Caps time

[Wat76]

Hello, would like to know if anyone who does CAPD does less than 9 hours per night. I think I read some where that it varies. Anyone does less than 7 nights a week.  Someone told me they are allowed to run for 6 hours, 5 nights a week instead of seven.  Your input will be greatly appreciated.

Deb

[justme15]

I do 8 hrs per night.  Just recently they added a manual exchange after i get home from work.

[Sydnee]

Ed does 8 and a half hours per night. With 2 mid day manuals when he works Fri- Sun and 1 mid day on cycler when he is home.

[blondie1746]

I do 8 hours a night. Every night. But I have skipped a night here and there because of travel, with no problems. For the first 9-10 months, I had fluid in during the day.  But then my Dr. Said I was getting more dialysis than I really needed.  So now I am able to go dry during the day!   I love that.  Hope I am able to continue that for a while.

[amanda100wilson]

not sure if you are talking CAPD or PD with a cycler?  Either way, times are not cast in stone.  are you talking dwell time?  still not cast in stone.  on PD unless you are dry in the day, you are dialysing all the time fluid is in there.  if you are getting less out than you are putting in, then the dwell has been too long and you are re-absorbing, otherwise, you can lengthen or shorten dwell by an hour or two, since I am assuming you mean overnight dwell time?  the only time this would be an issue would be if you were dry in the day, since by cutting down dwell time you would then be cutting down on the amount of dialysis that you would be getting.

[Joe]

My cycler takes 9-9.5 hours, depending on how much lost dwell time I have during the night. And I do a manual in the afternoon as well as finishing with a fill that gets drained 3 hours later. For the rest of the day, I'm dry, at least for now. That's the routine every day of the week for me.

[Wat76]

Thanks Everyone.  No, I was not talking about dwell time, I was asking does anyone does less than eight or nine hours a night.  I run for 8 and half hours.  I have a friend who runs for 6 hours.  So, it is set in stone that we do 7 days a week, 8 plus hours a day. I know some skip at times, but wanted to know if there was an alternate schedule.  Sometimes, especially on weekends, I hate having to connect, even though I do and Monday - Friday, I have to hook up at a certain time in order to make it to work on time.  Most of the time I am late, but can get away with it.  If I was working anyplace else, this would be difficult.  Wish I could run for 5 hours or less, will give me more time.  With the summer rolling in, I have to connect no later than 9 pm and this sucks.  Well, I retire next year, hopefully, i can hang in there until then.

[Henry P Snicklesnorter]

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[amanda100wilson]

 Henry, that was what I was confused about.  The other point is, unless you are dry during the day, you do not dialysing for eight hours during the night, you are dialysing 24 hours a day.  Remember PD is a passive treatment, you put the fluid in and your peritoneum does the dialysis.  The machine simply facilitates filling and emptying of dialysis fluid from your abdominal cavity.  eight hours on the machine is not eight hours of dialysis (unless as I have said before, you are dry in the daytime).  the length of time that you use the machine for in circumstances where you have fluid in during the day, is flexible and should depend on how long you want to be in bed for.  If you want to run the machine for less time at night, you may need to do a manual exchange during the day, otherwise you may have fluid in for too long during the day and start to re-absorb.  I wad on PD for eight plus years, and I mad it work for me, not run my life.

[Sydnee]

I understand the having to hook up at certain times to get to work. Ed works Fri-Sun with 12 a hour shift and 30 minutes for lunch. He leaves for work at 6:30 am and gets home at 8 pm. When he gets home he just about has to hook right up so he has enough time on. Lowe's is not friendly about arrival time, if you're 1 minute late you get a 1/2 occurrence (at 10 occurrences you are fired)  On occasion when an alarm has gone off Ed has had to call-in and use FMLA so he can get to work without an occurrence (since it was because of his illness)       

[Wat76]

Thanks, I am learning the terminology, I am on the cycler, dry during the night and my time was 8 1/2 hour on the cycler at night. I am not complaining, was just asking does anyone who uses the Baxter Cycler do less than 8 0r 9 hours.  My question actually got answered today when I went in for my adequacy test.  My time has been cut down to 7 1/2 hour on the cycler at night, dry during the day and the best part of it all is I get to start doing CCPD 6 nights a week instead of 7 nights a week.  Yea for me.  I love CCPD and Amanda100wilson, it is not ruining my life, complicates sometimes, but I am very grateful to have the option.  Thanks to everyone for their input, again just wanted to know how long you are on the cycler at night. Sometimes, my cycler runs past the 81/2 hours if I have lost dwells.  Lately it has been ending therapy on time.  Loving Peritoneal Dialysis.

[highway61]

When I was on a Fresenius Cycler I did 8 hrs a night. I always supplemented it with manuals on my days off. I have to say that I really did benefit from the cycler. I t did allow me to continue to work a full time job.

If I had it to do again I would rely on the cycler less and on manuals more. This is just my personal opinion. It is hard to do manuals when you work nine hours a day with an hour commute. But the cycler is merely a machine running a program and isn't perfect. They do a good job overall, but they can be problematic at times. I prefer to be in control of what goes into me, and hopefully to get all back out. My cycler had a couple of instances where it had problems with this.

Bottom line is that you should use the cycler but consider it a be-all end-all to your home dialysis. Take time to do manuals as often as you can. It will only help you.

[amanda100wilson]

Wat76, i was mot implying that it was running your life, but I have encountered others in the past, who it definately does because they are so rigid about it.  In fact, if you run out of time and need to get to work, it really isn't going to hurt if you just cut it short now and again, just not on a regular basis.  if you know that you are running out of time just abort the dwell and go to drain ahead of the time that it is due to end.  not suggesting that you cut hours of your time when you do this, but the odd few minutes here and there won't matter.