What Does Home Dialysis Involve?

About 36 million Americans suffer from chronic kidney disease (CKD), a serious, life-threatening medical problem that happens when your kidneys are no longer able to adequately filter waste products from your blood. Dialysis is a medical treatment that’s designed to replace vital kidney functions by filtering your blood and maintaining healthy fluid levels.

Traditionally, dialysis was performed in a specialized medical center, and today, dialysis centers remain a primary source of state-of-the-art dialysis care. In recent years, however,  advances in technology have allowed many people to receive dialysis at home, without the inconvenience of traveling to a dialysis center multiple times a week.

As a leading nephrology specialist, Chadi Saad, MD, offers both on-site dialysis and home dialysis to help every patient at Nephrocare MD LLC get the best care for their needs. In this post, Dr. Saad and his team offer an overview of home dialysis, so you can decide if it’s something you’d like to pursue.

Quick review of dialysis

Before delving into home dialysis, it’s important to understand how dialysis works to help you stay healthy. As noted, dialysis helps filter your blood, removing wastes, toxins, and excess fluids when your kidneys are no longer able to do so. Without filtration, harmful substances build up in your blood, tissues, and organs, quickly leading to life-threatening complications.

Hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are the two primary types of dialysis. In hemodialysis, your blood is filtered by a special machine called a dialyzer. Once filtered, the “clean” blood is returned to your body via a catheter placed in your arm. The complete process takes several hours, and most people need to have dialysis treatment several times per week.

Peritoneal dialysis uses your body as the dialyzing “machine.” We place a catheter (tube) in your belly, then use the catheter to fill your belly with a special solution called dialysate. The fluid absorbs wastes from your blood over a period of several hours, then the fluid (and the wastes it contains) is drained out of your belly through the catheter. 

It’s important to note that even though dialysis can dramatically improve your health, it isn’t a “cure” for CKD. Instead, it helps your body maintain an optimal fluid balance, improving your quality of life and, in some cases, providing a bridge to kidney transplant.

Home dialysis: How it works

Because dialysis needs to be performed several times a week, there’s no denying that traveling to a dialysis center can take a lot of time. As a result, home dialysis has become an increasingly popular treatment option for many patients. Both hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis are available in a home setting. 

Certainly, having dialysis in your own home is more convenient than traveling to a dialysis center, but that’s just one way home dialysis can free up more of your time. With home dialysis, you can have treatments more frequently, with each treatment session taking  considerably less time than the four-hour average needed for an on-site treatment.

Patients opting for peritoneal dialysis can have treatment performed while they sleep, leaving their days open for the activities they really enjoy. Not surprisingly, home dialysis can help you achieve an improved quality of life by providing you with more independence, autonomy, and time.

Caveats and considerations

That said, there are definitely some important factors that need to be assessed when considering dialysis at home. Home dialysis involves the same processes as dialysis on site. That means that to be able to have dialysis at home, you must have a dedicated area to accommodate the dialyzing equipment, including a dialysis machine for traditional dialysis.

Dialysis requires individual commitment, along with continual access to a care partner who can provide assistance and “back-up” care and support as needed. Our team provides complete training to help you and your care partner learn how to connect and disconnect equipment, maintain optimal hygiene, monitor treatment, and obtain technical and professional support as needed.

Learn more about home dialysis

Dialysis in your own home offers greater convenience and more control over your own time. However, it does require training and a high level of commitment to ensure you maintain regular treatments to promote optimal health and wellness.

If you’d like to learn more about home dialysis and whether it’s a good choice for your care and needs, call 313-960-6605 or book an appointment online with Dr. Saad and our Nephrocare MD LLC team in Dearborn, Michigan, today.