Issue with clots on blood lines, has this happened to you?

[malibu1]

Mr Malibu is recently back to dialysis and currently using a chest cath as access, we have been doing dialysis at home for about 1 month using Nxstage.  We did hemo at home from 2009 to 2012 when he got a transplant.   We are getting these large clots in the blood lines nearly every treatment, and have had 3 in one treatment.  They are from 1 to 4 inches long and while they are in the line they look like they have white chunky looking things in the middle of the clots.  We were using heparin but stopped temporarily due to a possible heparin antibody issues, the jury is still out on that, heparin was suspected in the formation of the clots.  Hubby takes 1 aspirin a day.  When we were taking heparin we still had the clots.  Various Drs are stumped.  We are alarmed and usually dont complete treatments because of these. 

Has anyone had these, seen or heard of them?  Thanks.

[noahvale]

^

[malibu1]

He is not obese at all, they did run cholesterol and triglycerides tests which came out slightly higher than normal, the Davita nurse thought the white stuff may be cholesterol but the results dont pan out for it.  He does he high fat foods like steak about twice a week 

[obsidianom]

Any chance of an infection anywhere ?

[malibu1]

If there is an infection the typical signs are not present.  Yesterday we got a clot, removed it and hooked up to saline bag to recirculate and the dang saline bag clotted.  There was roughly 350 cc of saline  how in the heck does that happen.  He has an appointment tomorrow with the hematologist again, hopefully they Will find a blood thinner that will work for us.  Today we primed the machine with heparine and it seemed to help.  We had to stop about 10 mins early though due to high arterial pressure. 

[LisaBart]

A few weeks ago when my partner first started his dialysis he was getting clots...they use heparin too..i don't know enough about the process yet to comment but
nurses were stumped too....and yesterday they made comment of a pea size lump in his arm...no explanation either...he is also on aspirin....
doc appointment today as i think his blood pressure meds need decreasing.... hope they find answers for you.

[malibu1]

Turns out he has an antithrombin disorder.  A couple blood tests (one while we were on vacation) told the hematologist that he has this disorder  strange that the DR says its inherited, but he did not have this when we were doing dialysis last time.  Funnily enough when we went in to get the transplant in 2012 this very test came back bad.  PT/PTT is the name of the test.  That time he was not clotting...but we discovered that was due to the pineapple we had juiced and had for breakfast.  Pineapple is a blood thinner. 

So, mystery solved.  Mr Malibu started on coumadin.  We have had one clot since since.  V8 MOMENT, why did we not try pineapple?!?!?

[LisaBart]

Interesting.
Al's clots seem to have sorted out too.....and I think they were going in a bit too deep with needles...he has those nurses sorted out LOL
Got to say he enjoys the "banter" with the nurses...and they with him as he is one of the "less serious" patients....meaning his attitude...
he has some jokes with them He is definitely feeling much better.