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Hi, I'm Steve and have been a dialysis patient on some form of self-care or other since 1990. I've dialysed at home, abroad, in hospital, oh and had a transplant for 7 years. I work in the insurance industry for a City based business, but am very fortunate to be able to work from home 4 days a week. I hope, with my experiences, I can help others on dialysis or those facing dialysis in the future! It ain't so bad! Steve
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There is a shortage of Tinzaparin, potentially for the next 3 months so make sure you have enough stock to last you. I suspect if the units run out they can revert to pump heparin – not an option with NxStage. Check with your renal pharmacy on supplies for you.
... http://mydialysis.co.uk/blog/2011/11/12/tinzaparin-shortage/
I received a set of instructions through the post today for the new Saks for the Pureflow. They seem to have dealt with some issues in the new design of connections etc, so good to see that the work continues to constantly review and improve. How about the next improvement to reduce the batch creation time? 
The Saks apparently arrived at Kimal this week, but the plan is to use up the supplies of current Saks before making the settings changes to the PureFlow and making use of the new ones. This only applies to PureFlow machines running PureFlow SL software release 1.13 or higher. The new ones are designated 300 series.
... http://mydialysis.co.uk/blog/2011/10/21/new-pureflow-saks/
Been a while since I posted to the blog – work has been ‘voluminous’ to say the least, but taking a few days off. The NxStage (where’s the wood to touch?) has been behaving – but then the machine always seemed to – it’s been the PureFlow that was the issue, in the main. But that too has behaved – still high usage of Paks, but that aside, all good.
My blood results are now becoming more consistent and as a result of low potassium, I have to ‘gorge’ myself on this – so chocolate, tomatoes, bananas – you name it, I need to eat it. Put on a kilo or so, so need to watch the chocolate! Phosphates are down, PTH down and if this continues, then good signs all round. Dialysis time now averages about 3 hours 40 on a shorter session, although have been down to 3hrs 20, and for longer sessions up to about 4 hours. I have two doses of Tinzaparin to accommodate whether I am on a shorter session or a longer one, as I noted that my dialyser was remaining dirty on wash back, with some clotting, all on the lower dose of 2500units, so have 3500 also now for the longer 4 hours sessions.
Kimal took back a couple of the troublesome cartridges for analysis – not heard anything back, but had noted on some cartridges that the dialysate line at the lower left does not always sit in the channel in the plastic framework, and as such could become occluded. Needs a bit more tape to hold it in place.
With renewed confidence in the machine, contemplating a holiday with it in tow next year, rather than booking into a local unit. Want to go to France for a first hit as I can drive and take the machine with me. If that all works out ok then might work out doing this with flights.
I need to chase up my Kimal nurse as he did suggest I could attach my machine to the network so that both Kimal and NxStage could get data direct on the performance of the machine. I have a spare port on my router, and its about 4 feet from my machine, so will be easy to set up.
Onward and upward!
The NxStage Users UK forum is now live and ready to take your discussions! You can find it by going to www.nxstageusersuk.co.uk or you can just click this link. There are several categories for different subject discussions, but if you want to add a new category, please just let me know.
If NxStage or Kimal respond to any discussions they will be published in full.
Got something to say? Had a good experience, or maybe a not so good experience? Share it and we can all benefit by improving our collective knowledge.
... http://mydialysis.co.uk/blog/2011/09/26/nxstage-users-uk-forum/
I’m pleased to say I have now started up a forum on the my dialysis site which is embedded in the blog. This is a public forum so anything posted here will, after moderation, be visible to all. Given the development of NxStage in the UK, then this is a good opportunity to broaden the discussion and ‘compare notes’ to help those either new to dialysis, or those maybe in the queue to go home on dialysis and need to make decisions with their health professionals about what is the best way forward for haemodialysis. Decisions about whether to have a ‘conventional’ machine or to go the NxStage route. Maybe NxStage is the new ‘convention’.
Anyway, got something to say, no matter how small, then please feel free to contribute. This is a discussion location about dialysis in all forms and also kidney disease that brings us to this place and time.
Go to ‘Discussions’ in the top menu bar.
... http://mydialysis.co.uk/blog/2011/09/24/new-forum-on-mydialysis-site/
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