Almost a month on PD.

[highway61]

With a lot of help from people here, I am adjusting to life on PD. I am starting to actually feel better and am getting back to my previous chipper self.

The only negative I have is nausea. That seems to be getting worse. It was bad before PD and got better when I started but it is returning. It seems to hit at breakfast and dinner mostly. I have had incidents of tossing each. A real drag.

Other than that this is going well.

[willowtreewren]

Hi, Highway!

That is NOT a weight loss regimen I would recommend! 

I hope you get that sorted out soon, but I'm glad you are feeling better otherwise!

Aleta

[lmunchkin]

Great Highway.  Nausea seems to happen with D. people period.  Just another one of those things that they go through.  So glad you are feeling better, and hopefully even more as time goes on.

God Bless,
lmunchkin
 

[Willis]

How's your blood pressure? When mine gets really low (like 70/40) or I can't raise it above 100 for a week or so I have the symptoms you describe. Also, I take a med for itching and it will upset my stomach if I haven't eaten anything (like in the morning). It took me a while to figure these out. When things aren't right and the clinic doesn't have an answer I tend to experiment by withdrawing meds one at time to see what happens.

I've had a tendency toward low BP for years so getting dizzy when standing up is almost normal for me now. Since I've been on D it seems my BP will swing back-and-forth from too low to high. Sometimes I go to bed with a BP of 150/85 and wake up at 100/70. When it's lower than that I feel very sluggish and do actually throw up once in a while. Yuck.

 

[jeannea]

My doctor told me it was just like being pregnant. Your picture indicates that you should not be pregnant. But the extra fluid we carry around in our abdomen on PD can have the same effect. It just moves the stuff around in there and produces some nausea. If it gets bad and you think it's affecting your intake of protein and anything else you need, talk to your doctor. They have anti-nausea meds that can help. Ask for Zofran ODT.

[jadey]

I definitely have this problem every single morning especially when I have to wake up early.

[Joe]

I'm seeing it occasionally too highway, I'm told it's part of the game. A part I'd much rather do without. Glad to hear you're feeling better overall, hopefully the nausea will get better too.

[Stu]

Thanks Highway, I'm loving reading your posts, they're giving me a good idea of what to expect when I start PD.

Oh yeah, I can't believe no one has used this smiley in this thread yet: 

[Joe]

Don't need the smiley to remind me Stu 

[highway61]

The nausea continues, it was a little better yesterday. I haven't     in two days. Did come close. Stu is too funny. :-)

Willis, my BP hasn't been too low. Well, it is low for me since I had a number of years with poorly controlled BP. It is the reason my kidneys have failed. But the new numbers are staying consistent.

So I am trying to take it in stride. I am popping a lot of Toms, though I am not sure that are really helping.

Jeannea, I will look into the Zofran you talked about. Thanks.

[Ravenwolf]

 The only time I ever had PD related nausea was when I got dehydrated. That can happen when you hit the reds and greens too much. I once ordered my supplies half red and half green. Guarantee you I won't do that again. Not only was I nauseous and exhausted but, I had the worst case of constipation ever. I was almost begging to die before it all eased up. So if you been hitting the reds and greens heavily, you might want to ease up and use a few yellows for awhile. 

[highway61]

The only time I ever had PD related nausea was when I got dehydrated. That can happen when you hit the reds and greens too much. I once ordered my supplies half red and half green. Guarantee you I won't do that again. Not only was I nauseous and exhausted but, I had the worst case of constipation ever. I was almost begging to die before it all eased up. So if you been hitting the reds and greens heavily, you might want to ease up and use a few yellows for awhile. 

Thanks Ravenwolf! I will have to talk to the clinic about that. I have been doing midday manuals with greens and on the cycler I use a green and a yellow.

[Ravenwolf]

 Highway61, your method is the same as mine was for a long time. I had to tool around with them to get to that combination. Now I use 3 bags, usually 1 green and 2 yellows. You should be doing fine with your combo. It may be possible that, you are just not retaining that much fluid. If you are still urinating and/or not drinking that many fluids, yellows alone will work fine. At 6':3" and 290 lbs. it's kinda hard to tell when I am retaining fluid so, I do the greens and yellows during the week. Then I do a red and two yellows on the weekend. I also do a red or green during my midday. This works fine for me as, I am on a lot of meds and, I drink a lot of water to take them. I have been on PD two years. You have to tweak your prescription around until you hit the right combination. Good luck my good man. I hope you have the best of luck working it out. God Bless you.

[malaka]

All this talk about reds and greens and yellows sounds like late 60's hippies discussing types of LSD.  You know, the DEA may be monitoring this site and you guys might be in trouble.  And the  could be a reference to mescaline, too!   

[Joe]

All this talk about reds and greens and yellows sounds like late 60's hippies discussing types of LSD.  You know, the DEA may be monitoring this site and you guys might be in trouble.  And the  could be a reference to mescaline, too!   

I don't remember any of that malaka... 

[highway61]

We believe you, Joe. Sure we do. 

Malaka, you are too funny.   

Ravenwolf, I am going to use just yellows, I mean 1.5 bags, for awhile. If I find my legs swelling I will toss in a red, I mean a 2.5.
I haven't been drinking much, I plan to drink more. I am still urinating quite well.

[Ravenwolf]

 Highway61, good luck with that. I could tell from what you were saying that, you might have been a little fluid depleted. By the way, a red bag is 4.25.

@ Malaka. If the DEA wants to bust us for some basically sugar water, I hope they have plenty of lemons. They could open a lemonade stand.

@ Joe. Yeah, that stuff will rob you of your memory. Maybe you should take a break. 

[highway61]

Highway61, good luck with that. I could tell from what you were saying that, you might have been a little fluid depleted. By the way, a red bag is 4.25.

@ Malaka. If the DEA wants to bust us for some basically sugar water, I hope they have plenty of lemons. They could open a lemonade stand.

@ Joe. Yeah, that stuff will rob you of your memory. Maybe you should take a break. 

Yeah, I meant green. 

[Willis]

Sounds like things are going well for you. 

One thing I'd like to say is that mistakes happen. Like unhooking your transfer set with the valve still open. 

Or the time I hooked the red line to the 2nd bag by mistake (Baxter folks will know what I mean). So all night my fill was coming from a cold bag.

Then there was the time I was doing manuals on a long weekend (l like to take a break from the cycler once in awhile)...my BP was a bit low something like 100/70...then just as my fill was almost done and I was writing stuff in the log I realized I'd just used a Red bag instead of a Yellow! I still can't figure out why or how I did that.

Sometimes we just screw up and thankfully most of the time our screw-ups don't cause any long-term damage!

 

[Joe]

Or the time I hooked the red line to the 2nd bag by mistake (Baxter folks will know what I mean). So all night my fill was coming from a cold bag.

So Willis, how was that? And side effects of filling with cold fluid? Inquiring minds want to know.

[Willis]

Or the time I hooked the red line to the 2nd bag by mistake (Baxter folks will know what I mean). So all night my fill was coming from a cold bag.

So Willis, how was that? And side effects of filling with cold fluid? Inquiring minds want to know.

I didn't even notice until unhooking the tubing the next day but I tossed and turned all night (more than usual) and had cramps for a few hours in the morning.

Another time the stem on bag #2 got turned up in such a way that when it was near empty it was drawing nothing but air so it couldn't re-fill the bag on the heater. The last fill ran out and I got some air that went straight to my shoulders which caused some pain I could do without! The solution to that problem is to turn bag#2 over on its printed side so the curve of the stem is down. Hooking up that way and I've had no problems since!

Dialysis is such an ADVENTURE... 

 

[jadey]

I am normally on the cycler but a few times I had to do CAPD.. I didn't know that I can use my cycler to heat up the twin bags...so I was just doing cold fills..

It wasn't painful.. but boyyy i was freezing after a litre went in! I had to wrap myself up in a blanket to finish the fill.

[MaryD]

Ouch, Jadey!

We were to to never use a cold bag.  We've even discussed how to heat a bag when there is no power available.

[Joe]

I've experienced air in the line before, and you're right - it's something you can do without!

Thanks for the feedback on filling with a cold bag. Haven't had that happen yet, but you know that lil sucker Murphy...

[JLM]

Will[s:  we have the "red line" also, so I understood what you meant

I have done lots of cold exchanges.  Going to and back from WI last summer..  I didn't think they were all that bad.  Sometimes I had to set it to fill slower at the start.  (I'm talking manuals here.)