Health Question

[buddym]

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Hey everyone. My uncle has been on dialysis for what I assume is end stage renal disease for two years (non-diabetic). He has one kidney completely shut down. Recently, he has not been having hardly any urine output, and his doctors are worried that the other kidney is starting to go. My aunt was curious about the prognosis for someone with bilateral kidney failure on perotineal dialysis. How long can someone survive on the dialysis? I know that it varies, but I cannot find even a ballpark estimation to give her.

 

[genemd]

The survival time with PD is indefinite and fairly dependent on the patient and what other comorbidities they have. Numbers for median survival times for patients on both HD and PD have been published, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Interestingly, I met a patient who did hemodialysis 3 times a week and had been doing so since 1978. She's atypical, but it can be done. However, people who are on dialysis tend to get rather more infections, and also have a nasty tendency to develop amyloidosis over years of it. PD works pretty well for a lot of people as well. Rumors exist that Governor Schwartzenegger does PD after destroying his kidneys through years of injecting everything but carpet cleaner for bodybuilding purposes. He seems to be doing fine, but that is just rumor.

Is your uncle a candidate for transplant?

 

[buddym]

The survival time with PD is indefinite and fairly dependent on the patient and what other comorbidities they have. Numbers for median survival times for patients on both HD and PD have been published, but I can't recall them off the top of my head. Interestingly, I met a patient who did hemodialysis 3 times a week and had been doing so since 1978. She's atypical, but it can be done. However, people who are on dialysis tend to get rather more infections, and also have a nasty tendency to develop amyloidosis over years of it. PD works pretty well for a lot of people as well. Rumors exist that Governor Schwartzenegger does PD after destroying his kidneys through years of injecting everything but carpet cleaner for bodybuilding purposes. He seems to be doing fine, but that is just rumor.

Is your uncle a candidate for transplant?

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, my uncle is not a candidate because I believe that an autoimmune process is the cause of his kidney failure and his body would destroy the new kidneys. He won't talk too much about it, so that is why I know so little. I was just curious how long someone with no working kidneys could get by on PD, thank you for the insight.

 

[Doc Ivy]

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am really no expert, but I just had a lecture on renal failure and transplant today. It's actually fairly common for ESRD patients on dialysis to not make a lot of urine, although the recent change of urine output in you uncle is a concern. Also, I don't know what kind of autoimmune disorder he has, but as for SLE, the nephrologist that lectured said that lupus nephritis rarely recurs after transplant. Just some thoughts.