Hot Chocolate

[ESRD Survivor]

My favorite winter treat.  I wonder since its milk and chocolate and there is a lot of potassium and phosphorus plus fluid, if I took it to my dialysis treatment and enjoyed it there.  Would the session take out the bad stuff?  I would bring binders with me as well to help.  I am a first stick so its nice to have a warm drink and I don't drink coffee.

[texasstyle]

well, not a dr of course, but they say if you need to "cheat, it's best to do it before dialysis. Now, with it being done so close/during a session, I'm wondering if it has time to be consumed and processed through your stomach, through your liver,etc... and get into your bloodstream in order for the "bad stuff" too be pulled out. Hmm...... What did your nurses say?  And yes, it IS getting to be hot chocolate time.

[ESRD Survivor]

Haven't ask because they are all on the don't have it band wagon. 

[Cordelia]

I LOVE hot choc, its my most fav hot winter drink too since I don't drink coffee nor tea.

Just a thought: Wouldn't the binders get eliminated through the dialysis? I've always had the impression that it's likely pointless to take any medications just before/during dialysis since it would likely just wash right out?  I never take my binders before/during dialysis, just in case. Anyways, I could be wrong, I just wondered, I really don't know.

[Traveller1947]

If I craved hot chocolate as you do, I'd try it once at the start of dialysis, take my binders after it and see what happens.  You may be a purist about hot chocolate, but if you made it with water and a dollop of heavy cream, instead of with milk, it would minimize the bad stuff.  Marshmallows, instead of cream would lower the phosphorus, calcium and potassium even more.  Have it once a week instead of every day...A renal dietitian I once knew told me, wisely, that no food is forbidden to a dialysis patient: it's about frequency and portion control.  All the best to you...

[sullidog]

if you're gonna cheat do it before dialysis, and I agree, it's the portion/freq control.

[RichardMEL]

Remember binders will only help with the phos in the milk.

The thing is if you're going to have your hot choc - do it during the first hour of your D session. I was always told that the dialysis process gets rid of K pretty fast, and so it was OK to have chocolate and stuff if you did it at the start of your session because by the time you're finished, all that naughty stuff (including the phos, in theory) would be out of the system. It's definitely safest to have it then and not an issue. Obviously you need to account for the extra fluid though when calculating how much to take off etc.

Just on having hot chocolate at other times - here's what I used to do. I would treat it like any high-K food (eg: tomato, pinaeapple etc). That is if I had a hot choc, apart from the fluid amount to take into account, I'd count that as a high-K "meal" and thus adjust the rest of my day's diet to have low-K food (so I would not, for example, eat pizza!!!  ). I found that moderating my daily intake in this way resulted in the ability to have the odd "treat" and still get the labs to be all good.

Just my two cents anyway.

[ESRD Survivor]

All good advice and info.  I plan to drink most of it in the first our of D.  I do have some instant hot chocolate that may satisfy, but it still has powder milk to make it taste close to the real stuff.  My favorite way is half and half with some milk (take a tiny fat out) and nestle quick.  I just may have some tomorrow at D as we are having a cool front in Phoenix.

[Cordelia]

Enjoy!

I'm getting such a bad craving for one myself I might have a hot choc today too! LOL   

How'd it go?