When the Only Way Out is Dialysis Peritoneal

No one is exempted from having a kidney problem. Even for those people who are health conscious and carefully choose the food they eat, there will come a time that they need to undergo some medical checkups to make sure that their kidneys are still functioning well and that they do not have other health problems that can be associated with kidney diseases. Identifying kidney problems in an early stage is one way of preventing simple difficulties in becoming severe and chronic. It can also avoid further treatments which are most of the times costly, painful, and inconvenient. Being diagnosed with severe chronic kidney disease can leave the doctors and patients with no other choice but to go through with the process of dialysis peritoneal.

Dialysis peritoneal is a popular method in treating a person with severe chronic kidney problems. This kind of treatment uses own body tissues of the patient inside the belly to work as a filter. This filter is necessary because intestines are located in the abdominal cavity which is the space between the abdominal wall and the spine. Fluid is being filtered through a permanent tube in the abdomen and flushed out while the patient is unconscious. Compared to other kidney treatments, dialysis peritoneal is less expensive because a patient does not need to be confined in a medical facility for a long period of time. The patient can be sent back home few days after the surgery although regular visits need to be done to ensure its effectiveness and to monitor improvements. This is also necessary to prevent unwanted things to happen while the tube is inside the patient's body.

There are two kinds of dialysis peritoneal: permanent cycling peritoneal and ambulatory peritoneal dialysis. The former kind of dialysis is performed using a cycler machine every evening while the patient is asleep to make several fluid exchanges automatically. This is more convenient form of dialysis because it gives freedom from daytime fluid exchanges and it is commonly linked with lower rates of peritonisitis; a kind of infection which can cause by the catheter inside the abdomen. On the other hand, the latter type of dialysis is done by instilling two to three liters of fluid at a time into the patient's abdominal cavity through a flexible plastic catheter which is implanted in the abdominal wall .For a period of hours, fluid is allowed to stay in the abdominal cavity while gradually absorbs waste products and toxins form the body until the fluid is drained out and replaced with fresh fluid.

Having a tube permanently inside the patient's body is one of the disadvantages of dialysis peritoneal. Aside from the uncomfortable feeling that a foreign body resides inside the abdomen, patients under this kind of treatment can be prone to allergies and infections especially if the patient is not being taken cared of properly. This can be very challenging especially if the patients do not have the ability to take of their needs and manage their personal hygiene.