Sak Empty ?

[obsidianom]

I am interested if anyone else normally uses the entire contents of their sak. For example we do 30 liters and after 2 treatments the 60 liter sak should be empty.
The reason I am writing this is to see what others have found when they remove the "empty" sak. Until recently I found the sak basically empty. The last 2 saks however there has been leftover dialysate. Today I measured it and it was 1.5 liters. That concerned me as it is 2.5% of the total . The sudden change also bothered me. I am not sure if it is the cycler not measuring it correctly or the pureflow over filling the sak to start. If it is over filling it could change the electrolyte concentrations up to 2.5%. 
I called Nxsatage and they are sending a plug in device to get readings on the machines. I am just interested in what other people are finding when they use up a sak. Do you have leftover dialysate if it is supposed to be empty?

[cassandra]

When I do 2 x 30 liters I have always had about 5 liters or so left. When I do 60 liters there's also about 4 or so liters left. I don't think it's changed much, but would love to know what your readings will show.

Love, Cas

[Speedy1wrc]

Always have leftover and always about the same. I have never measured it, but after two 30L treatments it could easily be 5L. There might be one inch left in the bottom of the SAK/tub?

[cassandra]

Problem solved, before starting the second 30 liter session, I change the setting (5) to 35 liters, so Sak is empty. When doing 50 liters, I leave the 15 liters in, and add either 20 liters in bags, or 15 liters or whatever I fancy in the next session. Anyway, there's room to play which gives me a peculiar, and satisfactory sense of freedom

   

[amanda100wilson]

There may or may not be an overfill, so sometimes the whole SAK is used, sometimes it isn't.

[obsidianom]

Actually I found out the truth. It is that there is a 10% margin of error on the use of the dialysate by the cycler. That means up to 3 liters . So foor example if I use 30 liters of a 60 liter sak the first treatment, it in reality could be from 27 to 33 liters actually used. Then the second use of the Sak is effected either up or down accordingly. This is due to the cycler not being 100% accurate. It kind of surprised me to find that much of a margin of error, but that is what I was told by Nxstage.

[PrimeTimer]

Funny you mention it, obsidianom. Just tonite we were using the last 30 liters of a 60 liter SAK and found ourselves with definitely more than 1 liter leftover to drain. Usually there is very little left but not tonite. This is the first time this has happened. Hope it doesn't keep happening. Hhmm...

[PrimeTimer]

Actually I found out the truth. It is that there is a 10% margin of error on the use of the dialysate by the cycler. That means up to 3 liters . So foor example if I use 30 liters of a 60 liter sak the first treatment, it in reality could be from 27 to 33 liters actually used. Then the second use of the Sak is effected either up or down accordingly. This is due to the cycler not being 100% accurate. It kind of surprised me to find that much of a margin of error, but that is what I was told by Nxstage.

NxStage shipped us a new manual for our new S Cycler and I believe they included some verbiage about their accuracy rate(s). We are now using 402 SAK's and there's a lot leftover after treatment but I also began noticing it very recently with the 302 SAK's as well. I've also noticed that the 402's really balloon up inside the Pureflow tub, a very tight fit and wonder why it does that. Didn't seem the 302's did that. Maybe I'm just chasing ghosts...