Anybody here ever want to quit dialysis completely?

[karen547]

some days I get major anxiety when driving to dialysis, and freak out. I hate to admit it but there are days when I want to just stop it and live my life like I want. I know that I've only just begun dialysis but honestly I sometimes just wanna give up! I'm just having a bad day I guess.

[keefer51]

I know how you feel Karen. I waited too long to go on this time. Creatine was over 10.0. I wasn't pressured like the first time on. When i came back to where my family was i felt a little better. I am alone so it is easy to just quit. The first time i had thing to look forward to, wife, kids, etc.. Now i have really just myself. After so many years of this crap i wanted to just let go. But i don't want it to win. I fight it every day. I have found something to look forward to, myself. I do this for me. Somehow something in this lousy life wants me to still live. Karen, maybe try and sit and figure out something like a goal you couldn't live for before. My ex and kids are somewhere out in this world. I feel some day i will see my kids again. Whether i have someone in my life or not i do this for me. Please search your heart pal. You may find the reason.

[Redbomb]

I know that I debated about not starting Dialysis.  But it's like Keefer said, I found a reason for starting and staying on, and I pray that you will too!

  -- My thoughts and prayers are with you

[Black]

My husband was around 60 when he was diagnosed with PKD and knew that his kidneys would fail in a few years.  We talked about dialysis and at first he was not sure if he would attempt it or not.  Now, just a few years later, he is on NxStage at home (less than a year) and doing all of the things he did before, and feeling better than he has for years.  Today is our 27th anniversary and I am so very grateful to still have him here with me.  He started the day with a smile, did his dialysis, and headed out to check on a couple of small projects he has been supervising with some part-time employees.  He enjoys frequent calls from his son (also diagnosed with PKD) and his grandson, and is eagerly awaiting the birth of his granddaughter any day now.  He would not give all of that up, and without dialysis he would have missed all of that.  Besides, I told him I am too young to be a widow and I'm too old to train another husband. 

If you're just getting started you're probably at the hardest point.  It does get better, but you may have to push all of the health care professionals involved in your care to make you feel better, and to help you cope.  You need to find some things in your life that you love and enjoy, or some purpose, or project, to which you need to dedicate yourself.  Talk to someone -- friends, family, the center social worker, or ask for a consult with a therapist.  Or, just post here and we'll try to help you through.   

[st789]

Hang in there, hope things will get better for you.

[stauffenberg]

Statistics show that 20% of all deaths among dialysis patients are the result of voluntarily discontinuing therapy.  Although this amounts to suicide, for some reason killing oneself independently of withdrawing from dialysis as the means of doing so is counted separately, and accounts for another 10% of dialysis patient deaths.  Personally, I don't see why killing yourself by unhooking yourself from a machine is not suicide, while killing yourself from using any other instrument to accomplish the same outcome is. Whatever way the voluntary deaths are counted, however, dialysis patients have an overall suicide rate many times higher than the general population.

I don't see anything wrong in suicide where the reasons for it are rational.  Just as I would not fight and struggle to find some reason why I had to stay in my seat and continue to watch a boring and irritating movie, so too I don't see why a person should feel obligated to struggle to continue to live, as though human existence were some sort of insane competition to see who could stand it the longest, regardless of how awful it became.

[kitkatz]

An honest answer to the question do I want to quit dialysis?  Yes, everyday of my life.  However there are reasons I  stay here. Most all I just want to know what is going to happen next in my life!

[goofynina]

When i was on hemo, that is all i thought about, now that i am doing PD, life has new meaning.  I know the time will come again where i have to go back to hemo and i do dread all those thoughts going through my head again but i have to live in the NOW, enjoy today for what it is and not think about tomorrow.   

[Ang]

never  wanted to  quit  dialysis,  i  ddo  in  center,  so  my  solution  is  i'm  off  to  a  part  time  job,to  much  to  achieve  and  live  for  to  stop.
does  it  piss  me  off,some days   you  better  believe  it,while  theres  air  running  through  my  body  i'll  be ,  untill  that  magic   t  word  comes  along.
wish  you  all  the  best  with  your  fight  ahead.

[RichardMEL]

Karen, I think most of us at one time or another have similar thoughts. I know some days I just don't want to face another 5 hour session.. or I want to sit in the sun all afternoon and guzzle drink after drink (name your poison!) but.... unfortunately this is the situation that we have to face for the time being until something changes (eg: a transplant). Certainly being younger would also make it difficult... you want to live your life and not be tied down by such stuff... yep... can totally relate... I guess when I feel like this I think about the consequences of NOT watching my fluids or NOT doing dialysis.... and I figure I've still got a long life to lead and hopefully sometime down the track things will get easier....

besides I am NOT quitting before I see my team win a premiership... and since they finished dead last this year it's going to be quite a while I think!! LOL

[Wattle]

besides I am NOT quitting before I see my team win a premiership... and since they finished dead last this year it's going to be quite a while I think!! LOL

    Oh, Richard you love to torture yourself don't you. 

                                     GO PIES!!!!!          (australian AFL)
                     

[goofynina]

Did someone say PIES?? I dont know who or what they are, but i am definetly going for them, YUMMO 

[Rerun]

I absoulately hated dialysis the first time and for 17 years (transplanted) I vowed to not go back to dialysis.  But, when the time actually came, I just had to try it for my family.  I cried and kicked and screamed the whole way but I did it.  I've been on it for 2 years now and it is not as bad as it was 20 years ago.  But, dialysis is only as good as your access.  I don't want to live my life with tubes in and out of my chest and them cutting on my arms and chopping off my legs. 

It is not a bad way to die.  I have no urine function so my time without dialysis would be short.  Hmmmm does that tell you how much I think about it?   

[st789]

While I was on dialysis, I never thought about quiting it despite many setbacks.  Now, I enjoy my precious transplant kidney for 2 yrs.  I am in the early 30's and still have a lot to live.  I do not know what the future will hold for me but if I have to go back to dialysis I will carefully think hard about it and the pro and con of quiting dialysis.

[skyedogrocks]

Rob hates dialysis, he wants to quit it everyday.  That's the stubborn side of him talking.  The reasonable side tells him that it keeps him living his life as normal as possible.  He is having access issues again and really hates dialysis right now!  Especially since he does NxStage and has to deal with it at home.

However, it helps to keep a busy and "normal" life so that you can enjoy the people in your life and things you like to do.

[carolynt]

I go three days a week three hours each time which I know I probably have it easy since alot of people go 4 hour or more.  I hate it..I hate the needles and I hate laying there waiting for it to be over.  I would love to find out who determined three days a week and the amount of hours needed.  Why cant it be two days a week maybe 4  hours each time...just wondering which I do alot.  I know I will be doing this until th end but I wish someone who came up with dialysis by now would find a cure or easier way to do dialysis.  Again jus wondering...

[George Jung]

8 or 9 or 12 or even 20 hours a week of dialysis is not the 168 hours of function a working kidney provides every week.  I hate dialysis too.  I just had my time reduced by 30 min and was happy about it.  I think I took it as a sign that my body is doing well but I know the more dialysis the better.  Remember that there is little to no function in between treatments and toxins that can kill you are accumulating in the blood.

[stauffenberg]

Interestingly, the amount of time patients are normally required to spend on dialysis per week was not determined by their medical need to restore normal renal physiology, which would require them to stay on literally every minute of the day and night, but solely on the basis of a cost/benefit analysis for the heathcare system.  It was determined that treatment three times a week of 3 to 4 hours a time produced the greatest cost efficiency for the healthcare system, since that was empirically discovered to be the treatment dose at which the combined cost of treating the co-morbidities patients developed because of inadquate dialysis plus the cost of delivering dialysis care reached a minimum point.