If you are considering a transplant, even a tiny bit, get on the transplant lists ASAP. If a kidney becomes available you can always say "No." and stay on dialysis, but deciding in ten years you should have gotten on the list is not good.
Much also depends on what caused the kidney failure. For example, diabetics have a much tougher time handling the additional problems that diabetes causes
You can find a full table of statistics for the varying life expectancies of people with endstage renal failure according to age group, presence of absence of diabetes, and treatment modality (transplant or dialysis) in a medical text by Professor Gabriel Danovitch, Handbook of Kidney Transplant (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 2001) p. 16. His data are based on a huge statistical survey of many patients over many years and show that for the average patient without diabetes, a transplant doubles the life expectancy. For a patient with diabetes, a transplant triples the life expectancy. Thus a diabetic man in his forties on dialysis can expect to live 8 years on average, while a diabetic in his forties who gets a transplant can expect to life another 24 years. The life expectancies of dialysis patients overall are remarkably similar among age groups, which is surprising, since younger people normally have a much longer remaining life expectancy than older people.
The choice between dialysis and transplant is a no-brainer. During dialysis there is accelerated development of arteriosclerosis, increased risk of heart attack, damage to the nervous system, loss of bone mass, loss of muscle tissue, damage to the pituitary gland which in turn creates chaos in the body's hormonal balance, plus the danger of lethal hypotension and infection, to say nothing of the constant exhaustion from severe anemia. Your life is also taken over by your treatment. With a transplant, all of the physical damage associated with dialysis is avoided, and though the immunosuppressive drugs can also accelerate the development of arteriosclerosis and bone loss, their net damage is much less than that incurred by staying on dialysis. The proof is in the pudding: transplant patients live twice as long as dialysis patients, while diabetic transplant patients live three times as long as diabetic dialysis patients.
well, the research I've been doing shows that the mortality rate among hep C patients who have kidney failure and get a transplant is much higher than those who do not have hep C.not everyone on dialysis is subject to the exhaustion that stauffenburg mentions.in my own experience, when i first started dialysis, i was doing hemo at a local dialysis clinic. after the sessions (three per week) i was exhausted and had to rest or lie down for up to two hours afterwards.on P/D, that changed for me when i switched to the double-bag dialysis. now, on the baxter cycler, i find my energy is pretty consistent and exhaustion is rare, for me. i'm not running marathons, but i'm not draggin my tail like i was on hemo, at least. i can understand why stauffenburg feels the way he does though, being a transplant recipient would make him more supportive of the procedure, of course.its not easy, getting an unbiased view, but that's the nature of things, i suppose. you can say the facts speak for themselves. but, it all depends on who you're talking to, their experience, their beliefs, and one can only toss the dice and hope, in the end.i'm not ready to toss the dice. not yet.love~LL~
I believe two other risk factors with a transplant are skin cancer and developing Type 2 diabetes.
I'm O+ and can't even get a family member to come forward.
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
I Hate Dialysis Message Board
Author
