FB Live – April 16th: DPC Education Center’s Healthcare Consultant, Velma Scantlebury, MD, Live on Facebook to answer your kidney related questions. This month, Dr. Scantlebury answers patient questions about paired exchange transplants, the effects of calcium build up in dialysis patients, why fluid overload is so dangerous, and many other kidney-related topics.
Kidney paired exchange, or a "kidney swap," is a donor matching option that allows incompatible living kidney donors and recipient pairs to still receive a transplant. Two (or more) donor-recipient pairs exchange kidneys, so that each recipient receives a kidney from a donor who is a better match. This increases the availability of living donor kidneys and can significantly reduce the amount of time a patient might wait for a transplant. Dr. Scantlebury highlights how this is becoming increasingly more common and is a great option if you have someone who would like to be a living donor but is not a compatible match. If this is something that you or someone you know would be interested in, talk to your transplant center!
Continuing on the topic of transplant, Dr. Scantlebury also dives into what it means if a patient is told that they have too much calcium in their body to receive a transplant. She explains that when patients go on dialysis, they have calcium and phosphorus metabolism issues. With that inability to regulate phosphorous in the body it, you get deposits of calcium in your blood vessels. If there is too much calcium built up, there is trouble getting a good connection for the transplant and many complications can arise from trying to cut into vessels that have those deposits. That’s why it is extremely important for dialysis patients to follow a diet low in phosphorous and to take their binders, as prescribed, to keep their levels as low as possible and their blood vessels viable for use in transplant.
Dr. Scantlebury also answers a patient’s question about why fluid overload so dangerous for dialysis patients. She explains that, unless you are sweating or have a way to get rid of that fluid, any liquids taken in are going to stay in the body since dialysis patients do not make normal amounts of urine. If there isn’t a way for fluid to exit your body, then it will put extra stress on your heart, which weakens it and leads to pulmonary edema. Home dialysis is a way to dialyze more often so that there is less strain on your heart, so Dr. Scantlebury strongly encourages any patients interested in that option to speak with their health care team.
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