Dialysis

Do you have a family ever advised by a doctor to take a dialysis procedure? Hearing his name alone can make hair goose bumps. Actually what is meant by dialysis or which in medical language is known as hemodialysis? Is the procedure safe?

Few years ago, when I was in junior high school, my father did two times a surgical operation because he got problem with one of his kidney. Then after a years a doctor advised him to do hemodialysis. My father did hemodialysis about 5 years before he passed away in 2016. So now I want share you what is dialysis. How it work. What the effect after doing it, because when my father back home after every dialysis he got headache and sometime his body irritation (itch). I also ever see when the nurse treated it to my father. The size of it injection is not like usual injection, it is bigger than others, because in dialysis have special injection. Oke , here we go.

What is dialysis for?

The kidneys are a pair of organs about the size of a fist, and are located on both sides of the back of your waist. Well-functioning kidneys serve to prevent excess fluid, waste products, and toxins in the body. The kidneys also help regulate blood pressure and blood levels as well as electrolytes in the blood, such as salt and potassium. In addition, the kidney becomes a place to activate vitamin D in order to increase the absorption of calcium in the body.

When your kidneys can not work properly (due to illness or trauma), then your doctor may recommend a procedure called hemodialysis. Wash the blood helps replace kidney function so the body can still have a balance function. However, it should be remembered that dialysis cannot cure kidney disease or other conditions affecting kidney work, therefore, other treatments are still needed.

How is the dialysis procedure?

Hemodialysis is a blood-filtering procedure with the help of a machine called dialysis. Without dialysis, the waste products and salt in the body will accumulate in the blood and settle into toxins.

To drain your blood to the machine, the doctor will make an access from your blood vessels through surgery. This blood vessel access will drain enough blood from the body so that the filtered blood will be quite a lot and easily get out of the body. This vascular access can be long-term or short-term, depending on the medical condition you have.

The dialysis procedure is usually done in the hospital during for three to five hours. You may need to come to the procedure for several times a week, my father came twice a week, depending on your condition and medical needs. Before dialysis, your weight will be weighed, and so afterwards, it aims to measure how much excess fluid can be taken from your blood.

Is there a risk of undergoing dialysis?

Hemodialysis aims to save your life, but that does not mean this procedure has no risk. You may experience the following:

Low blood pressure, Anemia, muscle cramp, insomnia (difficult to sleep), itchy, high potassium levels in the blood, depression, pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane around the heart), Immediately tell the health worker if you experience any of the above symptoms or feel uncomfortable during the, procedure. My father experience most of these risk, but every person experience different kind of these risk, depending on your condition. 

Preparations to be done before dialysis

Before your first dialysis, your doctor will perform a small operation to make access to your blood vessels. This access can be a small tube or a small machine planted into the blood vessels. Once you have access to the blood vessels, then you are ready to undergo dialysis.

Just wear loose or comfortable clothes when coming to the hospital to undergo hemodialysis. Your doctor may also ask you to fast before the procedure if necessary.

Expected results after dialysis

Not all kidney disorders are permanent. Hemodialysis can be temporary and aims to replace kidney function until your kidneys can return to normal functioning. However, chronic renal failure will usually be difficult to improve.

In most cases, patients with certain kidney diseases should undergo lifelong dialysis or wait until a kidney transplant can be performed. Consult to your doctor about this.