This is a really good look at the aspect of pump speed and dialysis.  The author, Greg, always does a very good job of making the complicated simple.  I recommend you read his other postings at his blogsite, BigDandMe.

Devon

Big D and Me

Manny (not his real name) started BigD about two months ago.  And contrary to common experience, he feels just as lousy as when he started: weak, tired, generally unwell and incapable of doing much at all.  These are classic symptoms of insufficient dialysis, where not enough toxins are being removed by the membrane filter.

Why?  Like all new BigD members, his fistula was soft and fragile and initially couldn’t handle blood pump speeds higher than about 200 milliLitres per minute (mL/min).  But rather than his fistula gradually maturing over time to become capable of faster blood flows, it had some kind of blockage (maybe it was clotted or had a narrowing that impeded the blood flow).  So staff couldn’t get the blood pump speed past the 200 mL/min mark, which is not really enough dialysis to make a difference.

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About DevonTexas

I am a person with ESRD (End Stage Renal Disease) which means my kidneys don't work. Forty or so years ago that would have been a death sentence but today there is Dialysis which means I could be hooked up to a machine that would clean my blood as the kidneys should. Three days a week, I went to a dialysis center and had too very large needles stuck in my arm to remove and replace my blood as it passed through a process where it was cleaned and the fluid was removed, a process taking a little over four hours each time. In November 2017, I received a kidney transplant from a deceased donor. My life went into overdrive. With a "new" functioning kidney, I no longer had to go to a dialysis center and my days were not open to be lived rather than recovering from dialysis which meant dialyzing for three days and resting for 4 days a week. I work full-time and often 50 hours per week. It is something I never imagined. I highly recommend it! HeeHee I want to advance knowledge about dialysis and transplant so that others can learn from my experience and mistakes. We shouldn't have to reinvent the wheel, eh? There is so much to be learned and experienced about our predicament. There are vast resources available to support us and enrich our lives but many patients don't know about them. There are also many issues that we have to deal with whether we want to or not. So I blog about them in www.DevonTexas.com All comments are confidential until I approve them. If you don't want your comment public, let me know and I will respect that. So, feel free to leave a comment. I also blog in LegacyTales in WordPress if you are interested in the ramblings of a Old Man. Give a peek and let me know what you think. https://legacytales.wordpress.com/ Enjoy.
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