First crash on NxStage

[Adam_W]

I know it doesn't happen often with daily dialysis, but I had my first bad crash since starting NxStage. I did my treatment in the centre today to practice cannulation, and I felt a little "washed out" after I came off but it wasn't too bad. A couple hours later, however, I started feeling really awful. I checked my BP and it was something like 100 over 60 and my pulse was in the 150s. I called my centre and let my nurse know what was going on, and I ended up hanging a saline bag and hooking a line up to my catheter and gave myself 500cc of saline over a 2 hour period. My blood pressure is back to normal, and my heart rate is down into the 130s, and I feel a lot better. I will be raising my dry weight from 55.4 to 56. I'm just glad I had all my equipment at home to give myself saline. I've been using the NxStage for almost a month, and this is the first "crash" I've had (and I was a bad "crasher" in-centre), so all in all, this little machine still kicks some serious arse.

Adam

[Sluff]

Sorry you had to have that experience but sounds like you did all the right things. Glad your doing better.

[goofynina]

That was one of the things (of many) i remember Epoman complaining about,  low blood pressure all the time, just be careful and take care Adam, we are here always for support 

[skyedogrocks]

Ugh, so sorry to hear this Adam.  Rob gets the low blood pressure from time to time and it kills me inside when I see this.  He would do this a lot in center too.

What has helped him has been:
 Not taking much fluid off at once.  If he has 2 kilos to take off, he does takes off 1.5/hour.  Never takes off more than 2.5 in a session.
 Sitting back if he feels it coming on
 Playing computer games in the video arcade, courtesy of IHD!  This has helped him immensely!  He'll play an aggrevating game right around the end of the fluid removal to keep his BP up.
 If I see him start to get woozy from it, I'll start to nag him to bring his BP up.  Sounds kinda mean, but it works.

Hope some of this helps you!  Good luck!