Drain Problems

[Whamo]

I use a Baxter CAPD machine to do dialysis at night.  I do four exchanges each session.  Things have been going well since I started writing down my fluid intake.  I usually drain about 1500 ml  a night (UF).   I usually stand up during the last drain.  It seems to help.  Last night I woke up in my chair, and my last drain was only 975 ml.  I felt full, especially with 1500 ml. that I carry each day.  My blood pressure, after meds, was 167.  It's usually below 125.  I wasn't going to walk around like that all day, so I drained using an Ultrabag.  My blood pressure came down, and I felt better.  Yesterday I drank over my 48 ounce limit, I drank 58 ounces, but that shouldn't have been a big problem.  Does anyone else have problems like this?

[Joe]

I haven't had a problem like that. Usually when I'm over carrying fluid, my BP goes up.

[Joe]

I haven't had a problem like that. Usually when I'm over carrying fluid, my BP goes up.

[Weggy]

I never had that issue with the BP, but I do have a solution if you don't drain properly if you don't stand up.

I have the same issues when draining. If I am laying down I will not drain properly. I need to sit or stand to fully drain. However, sometimes I sleep through my alarm to drain properly. However, I found a solution to it other than doing a mid-day exchange.

When you are hooked up and your cycler says, "End of Therapy," you can press the down arrow a few times to get to "Manual Drain." On that selection, you can press enter and you will begin draining again. However, you want to watch the numbers so you know when to stop. For example, you said your UF is normally 1500, but you only had 975 this morning. You want to manually drain to 525. Once you hit close to that number (525), you want to press the stop button. Then disconnect as normal.

If you do this, you do need to watch your initial drain numbers since there may be an odd chance you truly only pulled off 975ml. If your next initial drain is off by a lot, then you probably didn't have a uf of 1500 the previous night. If that is the case, I would find out why. However, I have been doing this procedure for quite a while and never run into any issues.

I did discuss this with my nurse and she had no problems with it. In fact, she didn't even know you could do that...

[Joe]

With the Baxter cycler the Manual Drain cycle will stop on its own when you are empty. I used to have to do this every time I got off the cycler because my UFs overnight were either very low or negative. I'd wake up in the morning and run a manual drain and get another 900-2000 depending on how the evening had gone. Now I come off the cycler with a 1800ml fill that I drain 3 hours later, so no more manuals.

[billybags]

Whamo, have you checked to see if you have got fibrin? That can stop good drains. My husband is on the Baxters cycler, he can go for months with out fibrin and then (whamo ) pardon the pun, he will have it for about two weeks and we have to inject heprin in the bag. Just a thought..

[Xime_from_Chile]

Hi Whamo,
My son's catheter was placed in such a way that it would only drain if facing up while Rafael was laying on his side. For that reason, I also used the manual drain option when the UF numbers were negative at the end if the treatment.
Did you have any fibrin? If you did, you could try using heparin as someone else suggested.
Other reasons for low UF numbers are dehydration and constipation, could any of those be the problem?

I hope you can solve the issue soon!

[Whamo]

I've never seen fibrin in my bags.  I'll use the manual drain in the future, when I get get caught sleeping in the chair, thanks.