Home Hemodialysis Offers Safe, Convenient Alternative

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Home Hemodialysis Offers Safe, Convenient Alternative
 
Saturday, May 24, 2008 - 10:35 AM Updated: 06:10 PM
 
By Julie Henry
Health & Fitness Reporter
NBC17.com
E-mail | Biography

GARNER, N.C. – Chris Townsend is one of an estimated 12,000 North Carolinians on kidney dialysis.   But he is one of only a small percentage that gets treatment at home.

Diagnosed with kidney disease in his late teens, Chris had a kidney transplant that lasted over 11 years.   But when that organ failed as well, he was told he would have to begin hemodialysis. 
 
“I didn’t know what dialysis entailed,” said Townsend. “I had no idea that it is a life-changing, life-altering experience.”
 
Dialysis was developed in the 1960s as a way to filter waste out of the blood of patients with kidney failure.   Some patients did it at home, like Chris, others in the hospital.   
 
But in the 1980s, federal reimbursement rules made it more costly to do dialysis at home, so commercial dialysis centers filled the need.  Now an estimated 99 percent of patients get dialysis outside the home. 
 
“You spend four to five hours at the center, and then you come home and you’re so tired,” said Townsend. “I would sleep anywhere from three to four hours.”
 
When Dr. Michael Oliverio suggested in-home dialysis, Townsend’s only concern was getting over his fear of needles. But after six months, he has become an expert at inserting the blunt-tipped needles into the permanent fistula, or opening, in his right arm.
 
Townsend’s girlfriend helps set up the machine for his evening treatments. They go through the process six nights a week.
 
Dr. Oliverio, of Capital Nephrology Associates, says more frequent dialysis is easier for patients to tolerate and increases their long-term survival. He adds that most patients are candidates for in-home dialysis as long as they have a partner to help them.
 
“Because it’s done more frequently, when you actually start to clean the blood with dialysis treatment, less toxin needs to be removed with each session,” he said. “So it’s less of a shock to the system.”
 
Because he feels better, Chris is back at work full time and because his machine is portable, he was even able to take it on a recent cruise, something he couldn’t have even thought about this time last year. 

http://www.nbc17.com/midatlantic/ncn/news.apx.-content-articles-NCN-2008-05-24-0004.html