Peritoneum Leaking!

[george40]

I was doing an exchange on monday afternoon, when I noticed my stomach growing and growing and growing. I thought it looked weird, it started to feel weird. The next exchange, it grew more. Each exchange I had filled with 2000ml and got approx. 1000 back. It look like I have a large watermelon or 2 in there. It feels as if the skin is about to pull apart. I am not in any other pain other than the stretching, pulling, and the pressure. Drs. said it sounds like a hole in my peritoneum and all the fluid has spilled into the stomach area. I will be in the hospital tomorrow for tests. I dont know if they repair the peritoneum or let it heal on its own. Anyways, sigh! I found another IHD member who had the same thing happen. I did not do anything out of the ordinary to make it happen. I will check in here over the next couple of days. Sigh!

Other Members leak Experiences:
http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=3201.0

http://ihatedialysis.com/forum/index.php?topic=9085.0

[willowtreewren]

Oh, George.

That is too bad. I'll be thinking of you tomorrow. I hope it all goes well in the hospital. I'm not familiar with PD, so I can't give you any advice, just support. 

Aleta

[Rerun]

Oh man!  Best of luck!!

                   

[Jean]

That sounds terrible. I hope all goes well with you on this. 

[KICKSTART]

Well thats a new one on me! Ive never heard of that happening before ! You have lifted anything heavy? or done a lot of stretching have you ? Anyway best of luck in finding out whats going on ! 

[monrein]

That sounds beyond unpleasant George.  I hope the hospital gets you sorted and that things get back to routine very soon.   

[rookiegirl]

I hope they can fix this issue and get back on track.  Sorry this is happening.  Please keep us posted on your condition because I've never heard of this. I guess anything is possible. 

[george40]

Hello, Its been a crazy time. Well, I basically took a break from dialysis for 24 hours. After that things went well for a day, Friday I wound up in the emergency room. Tomorrow, I may get a perm cath for hemo treatments. They may try to stretch me out until wed. when the surgeon is available to put in a different type of catheter that they think will work better for me with my stomach being distended. Drs. are still not sure if I will be able to continue PD, but I told them Id be willing to try this new cath before giving up on pd. I really want to continue on pd. Prior to all of this I typically carried fluid spread out across my stomach, now it seems it all settles in the lower region of the peritoneum. Has anyone ever experience a change in how you carry fluid?

Question: The surgeon claims the new catheter will be able to be used as soon as he get it placed. Has anyone experienced a cath replacement and being able to use it immediately.

Thanks for your support and prayers.

[peleroja]

Question: The surgeon claims the new catheter will be able to be used as soon as he get it placed. Has anyone experienced a cath replacement and being able to use it immediately.

I'm not 100% sure if I have the "new" catheter or not.  The one they just put in has a blue stripe down it, whereas the old one had a white stripe.  The surgeon said the new one works 30% faster.  I used to take 20 minutes to drain 2000 ml, and now take about 10-12 minutes; used to take 18 minutes to fill and now fill in 6-8 minutes.  They would have used the new catheter immediately, but it wouldn't flush, so they had to go in and "revise" it.  I think that's the medical term for screwed up!  Hope that helps.

[Restorer]

I had my first cath placed on the 1st of August last year, and we took our time getting it flushed and trying out PD with it. By the beginning of September, it was obvious that the catheter wasn't working, so I was scheduled to have it replaced. My condition was getting fairly bad, so I really needed to get going on PD ASAP. I had the catheter replaced and stayed overnight in the hospital, and I started doing actual exchanges, slowly, one week later. I had to limit the fill speed by holding the clamp mostly closed, and I only did 500 ml at a time at first, but I was able to slowly increase the speed and volume over several weeks.

[Hanify]

Hey George, how's it going.  Any news?  Peleroja I am jealous of your 'blue stripe' cath!  Mine's the white stripe one - mind you, I don't do any manual bags now so I don't have to worry.

[george40]

Update: I had quite a few days off of dialysis. Drs. said my electrolytes and other numbers looked great and considering I still make a fair amount of urine they figured I would be okay. Drain issue: I learned that fibrin does not always show its ugly head in the bags. So, I started using heparin in my bags on saturday and draining improved some. However it was inconsistent. Yesterday 6/10 I had surgery to explore what was going on and to change the cath (laproscopic) . Turns out the catheter was being partially blocked by the omentum. Anyways, they fixed that and tonight is my first low impact run on the cycler. It has been a longgg time since I set the machine up. Good thing they never picked my machine up when I stopped using the cycler as now there is a little wait to get one since baxter is coming out with a new model. I will let you know how it goes.