Kidney Patient Guide

I joined cos my dad is getting set to start dialysis. He's diabetic and alread lost a lot of his sight, and is not very mobile for other reasons.

I went with him to see the specialist renal nurse, this week. I think her main job was to point out the downsides of committing to dialysis. Considering he hardly does anything much except mainly sit in his chair / use his laptop and sleep atm, he doesn't see the time spent on the unit as a problem. Can he expect to see some actual improvement in his quality of life when this starts? His water retention and tiredness are pretty bad .. tho the nurse offered him some more tips on these issues.

He also has frequent diahrea (sp) is that lik to be connected to his kidney failure?

Anyone else in here in his age group? He's 84. Nurse told us she has a patient of 97!

He should see some improvement once he gets onto dialysis, it takes a little time for them to show.
I would guess they will want him to have haemodialysis.
Dad will see other dialysis patients, which helps a bit.

If he goes onto haemodialysis quickly they will almost certainly use a neck line, because a fistula takes time to heal after it has been made.
A neck line has a lower blood flow rate then a fistula.

See http://www.kidneypatientguide.org.uk/contents.php there is some good information here.

Best wishes.

Thanks. They are supposed to be doing his fistula soon.
The nurse did mention that they could do a neck line in an emergency

I was just wondering how he’ll know he’s reached emergency time? He is very stoical and puts up with a lot of stuff without much fuss.

The main reasons for emergency action (neck line) is based on, blood results, too much retained water (if it reaches lungs), and how the patient says they are.

Thanks