Quick question

[cyclops33]

Ok I have been reading alot of the post and feel you "guys" have quite the range of opinions.So my first question is just really a "feeler" question.By the way I am blind in one eye and loosing vision in the other....hence the nickname....cyclops33,I am just a one eyed monster so it takes me awhile to read posts and to answer them.My question is do you feel better now that you are on dailysis or worse?I get really annoyed at dailysis because they keep telling me I will feel better now than I did before I started but each day I feel a little worse.The complications seem to out number any good things by a margin of 10 to 1............no dailysis is not improving my life but rather taking the life out of me.When they do their monthly blood work all my numbers are well within range,except my creatin levels between 750 and 1000  forgot we use different blood scales than the US.Metric verses Imperial.So do you feel better now or before you started dialysis?






EDITED: Fixed title error- Kitkatz, Moderator

[Melissa]

Hello....love your nickname, and your sense of humor (-:
I am sorry to hear you are not feeling better, and that the complications are overwhelming. 
I have had this question also, and am looking forward to other replies...
I knew I was heading for dialysis for about a year before I started, so I never became very, very ill.  My major problems were nausea, and exhaustion, lethargy.  It took about two months before I noticed that I did indeed feel better, (I felt hungry!)...but it was not a very dramatic change.  I learned to think of dialysis as the thing that keeps me from feeling too much worse...if that makes sense (-:

My numbers are good, but I think everyone is different with regards to how they actually feel.  I am lucky that my Dr. is a little more concerned with how I am feeling than with perfect #'s.
I am on a Mon/Wed/Fri schedule, and I do notice that I feel the worst on Monday morning, and the best on Tuesday morning, so the Monday afternoon dialysis is definitely doing its job.

I wish you luck, hoping that your body gets used to the treatment and you start to feel a little better.
Keep me posted.

[willowtreewren]

Hi, Cyclops.

My husband definitely feels MUCH better now that he is on dialysis. There is a world of difference for him, but we do home dialysis and do it 6x/week. I am beginning to think that he is one of the very lucky ones!

I'm sorry that is isn't so great for you. 

Take care.

Aleta

[cyclops33]

I guess I should of mentioned I am also diabetic as well and been doing dialysis for 3 years.But the funny thing is I feel best Mon. mornings when I am at my heaviest........ .My runs are Mon.,Wed.,Fri. afternoon....! till 5 but the timing is never right usually I get done at 5:30,on a good day, because of the person they hook up before me wants them to do all kinds of extra stuff for them or decides to come late for some pretty dumb reasons that holds everyone up.

[del]

My husband feels much better since he changed from pd to hemo 9 years ago!!!  he feels even better since starting nocturnal home hemo 3 years ago!!  Hope things improve.

[maritza0486]

I can tell you from experience because I have had kidney faliure without needing dialysis, I have had a kidney transplant and I am now on dialysis. Dialysis of course could never in a million years outdo what your natural kidnies do when they are working well, but overall yes, one feels a lot better when on dialysis.

Without any treatment, it is all very dreadful from daily headaches, to nausea, to vomiting, to ill-feeling, to faigue, to lack of energy, depression, hopelessness, irritation, etc.

With the kidney transplant, I felt a lot more normal and healthier than ever before.

But to go back to your original question, yes, dialysis makes a difference in one's general physical feeling. Before I started dialysis I was feeling sick and tired all the time because of the rejection and after a few sessions of dialysis, I have been feeling so much better. Other than the occasional fatigue and the pressure going low a lot of the time (it varies on the person), I feel like I can do a lot now. The toxins accumulating in the blood because of the lack of function from the kidnies is such a bummer but since dialysis removes a lot of the toxins, it helps tremendously.

Good luck to your husband. I wish you guys the very best and I apologize for overexplaining.

[maritza0486]

Wow, I am completely misreading your question. I am so sorry. I am obviously very tired and in need of sleep or I must be the one who is blind. (I hope that did not offend you, it was a joke).

I do feel better on dialysis but I do miss having had the kidney transplant because it made me feel like a million bucks.

Sorry again for answering all wrong...LOL.

[RichardMEL]

Really difficult question to answer in a way.

I started before I felt really ill, even though my GFR was only 6 and so I would say dialysis has kept me "stable" on a "tired but functional" sort of level (now my GFR is 5, my creat is 900-1000) but I am doing OK. I imagine if I had started when I felt much worse then I would say "Yes, dialysis makes me feel better!" - but I'd say mostly it makes me feel about the same - although last Tuesday after my "weekend" I was feeling extra crappy(my Hb was down to 100 - 10.0 for the US) and I could really feel it. After dialysis I felt much more "normal" so I could tell it was doing it's job.

I must say though that I have no other real complications - I am not diabetic or overweight or any of the other things - so I can't possibly relate to how it must be for cyclops or others in a similar boat.

Perhaps you need to talk to your neph about how you are feeling and if there are any options to help deal with the complications - it seems to me those are what are causing you issues perhaps more than the dialysis process itself? Just a thought.

[Hanify]

I started suddenly, and was pretty sick at the time.  Haemo made me feel ill, so I didn't really start feeling better till I started doing PD.  But to be fair to the haemo, I was in a bit of a state at the time, and had other issues health wise at the time.  So I couldn't really say if I did haemo now whether I would feel as bad as I did then.  Hmmm, doesn't really help does it?

[monrein]

I felt better after starting D both times I've gone on it.  Not great but definitely better.  It can take a while however to adjust to the D process itself, not taking off too much fluid, fistula getting mature, learning to do the needles etc. 
I felt like a walking corpse before I started D, afterwards I felt like a person with good days and bad days which was far preferable.  With a transplant I most usually feel perfectly human again.

[Rerun]

I think they just keep telling you that you will start feeling better and after about 10 years you forget what feeling good meant so you just fall in line and say that you feel better.

                                               

Does dialysis cause brain damage?  That is the real question!     

[RightSide]

I started dialysis last November.

I now feel better in most respects.  Though it's due only partly to the dialysis per se, and also to all those IV meds they keep shoving into the line during dialysis.

I'm not dizzy anymore.
I don't get carsick while traveling anymore.
I'm not short of breath anymore.
My powers of concentration have returned.
The aches and pains in my joints have disappeared.
The itching in my skin is greatly relieved.
The color in my cheeks has returned.  I'm not pale anymore.
I have more energy to do work.

I do feel pretty depressed. But that's due more to the fact that I've had four surgeries and still no working fistula.

[Hanify]

I think they just keep telling you that you will start feeling better and after about 10 years you forget what feeling good meant so you just fall in line and say that you feel better.

                                               

Does dialysis cause brain damage?  That is the real question!     

That's right Retun - it's all relative to how you felt before anyway. 
What worries me about the brain damage is that I'm sure it does - but so does drinking heaps, and I used to do that too!  That means I've now been constantly doing things bad to my brain for ... oh, quite a few years.  What hope do I have???