An update on the daily dialysis test. The blood results achieved by doing 6 days of 3 hours were quite impressive. A large drop in phosphates, which, if continued would require a reduction in binders required, and also a drop in PTH – my parathormone levels have been rising, despite having a parathyroidectomy a few years back, some of the thyroid tissue must still remain, and so I need to improve the balance between calcium intake and phosphate control. The daily dialysis clearly had an impact, and I am keen now to see the effect of daily over several weeks. Of course another benefit of daily dialysis is a more relaxed diet regime as well as an easier to tolerate fluid intake. If you have ever tried to exist on 500ml of fluid a day – you’ll know how tough that can be. I have always struggled with this, but daily dialysis is a big help as taking off 1 to 1.5 litres a day is perfectly doable and means I can drink tea whenever I want (within reason).
The plumbing for the NxStage has now been done by Leicester unit, hardly know there is anything there – very neat an inconspicuous. The machine arrives on the unit in under 2 weeks now and I start my few days training on 15th June, all being well, home the following week.
Watch my blog for daily updates once it arrives! (Oh, and apparently, Leicester are now installing 6 of these machines, so more popular than at first thought).
