My beauty treatment

[Jannie]

I just started dialysis in August. It was very rough at first,and I really hated it.  The doctors,nurses and techs all did their best to help me out. Took a while,but they adjusted the machine to not take too much water out of me, only 1 kilo per treatment. More than that, and I got weak and nauseated. I don't enjoy dialysis, but as the treatments got easier, I find myself not minding so much. I wake up at 4:15, put on emla cream, then lie in bed till 4:30. I get up, dress and get my stuff ready, head to the hospital at 5 am. Once they hook me up, I lie back and watch TV. I find my eyelids getting heavy and I don't resist. I leave the TV on and it helps me sleep. Just old shows on TV land, like Gunsmoke, Star Trek, Green Acres ,the Addams family,etc.  I generally sleep for two to two and a half hours. When I wake, the treatment is almost over. I feel so relaxed and happy that I'll be leaving soon, that I call dialysis "My beauty treatment. " I know dialysis is good for me because it cleans my blood and makes me healthier, and the sleep makes me feel so good. Just had to share this.

[del]

Great that you can sleep jannie. Hubby used to sleep for a couple of hrs sometimes when he was in center. Now on home nocturnal he sleeps through the night!!

[Adam_W]

Glad things are going better, Jannie. I too had a rough time starting out, both physically and emotionally. Home hemo has helped a lot in both of those areas. I was never able to sleep during my treatments, and I still don't because right now my treatments are only 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I'll be starting nocturnal dialysis soon, so I'll rarely be awake during my treatments.

Adam

[AlasdairUK]

Hi Janine,

Dialysis should become easier. If you struggle to take off more than a litre you may be fairly dry and need to increase your dry weight. Dialysis can only pull fluid out of your blood so in the beginning you might have stored some extra fluid in your tissue and it takes a while for the excess fluid to shift into your blood stream where it can be pulled off.

You should be able to tolerate 3-4% of your dry weight in fluid being taken off during dialysis.

[Bajanne]

I know exactly how you feel.  My best dialysis sessions are when I sleep from beginning to end.  And the colder the room is, the better.  Last Wednesday, I had what I consider a perfect dialysis session.  The room was nice and cool - I even had a sheet over me.  I went off to sleep and woke only once, looked at the time and went back, up to the end of the dialysis.  I felt so good I asked the nurse if I couldn't go on for another hour!  I felt so refreshed and rejuvenated.  I love sleeping when it is a bit cold.

[goofynina]

I am so glad you have found the good out of something so "bad"  Thanks for sharing that with us, hopefully others will be able to understand how it is possible for us to actually find something good out of something bad.   

[Bajanne]

Course we can find something good out of something bad.  We have IHD, don't we?  How else would we have met these awesome people that make up our IHD family?  How else would we have met Epoman?  Renal failure is almost worth it, for getting to know you guys!

[KR Cincy]

  Renal failure is almost worth it, for getting to know you guys!

Hey, I think you all are great, but I think you would have been just as great had I met you in a bar while packing BOTH my kidneys!!!!!!

[Bajanne]

  Renal failure is almost worth it, for getting to know you guys!

Hey, I think you all are great, but I think you would have been just as great had I met you in a bar while packing BOTH my kidneys!!!!!!