In a few hours I’ll be off to my dialysis treatment. I’m already planning in advance how I would conduct my travel from our house in Manila, to the clinic in Quezon City. It’s only about 30 minutes away from our home, that’s if you have your own car, which I don’t. I take public transports (Jeepneys) and it takes 3 transfers before getting to the clinic. It’s tedious for patients like me, but there’s [...]

Hypertension or High Blood Pressure, as it is more commonly known, is one of the silent killers that plagues the general population. It owes its lethal efficiency to the fact that it goes on undetected for months, and even for years, up until a point where significant damage has already been done. Such as it was in my case, where I neglected and took it for granted, in spite of being aware of its past devastation on [...]

Hypertension or high blood pressure runs in our family. Several of my relatives either died of a heart attack or stroke caused by hypertension that’s been left untreated. I had hypertension as early as my high school days, although I am completely unaware of it. It was just brought up to my attention six years ago, when I was first diagnosed with chronic kidney failure. It was both shocking and unbelievable for me at that [...]

I recently wrote an article on why dialysis patients must be sensible on their eating habits, and the equal importance of consulting with your Nephrologist and Renal Dietitian before starting a diet plan. This time, I’m writing about the basic minerals found in food that concerns a dialysis patient, like Protein, Potassium, Phosphorus, Sodium, etc. You can work closely with your renal dietitian to decide on the meal plan that includes some of your favorite [...]

Diet and nutrition are two important things a dialysis patient must consider. Food gives you energy and helps your body repair itself Your blood picks up nutrients from your food and carries them to all your body cells. These cells take nutrients from your blood and put waste products back into the bloodstream. Good nutrition is the key to good health for everyone. It is especailly important for people with kidney disease. Even with the [...]

The current news about Swine Flu Virus has been the subject of discussion on our dialysis clinic recently. Concern and unrest seems to be the general consensus, and for good reason, I might say. It’s because we dialysis patients are immunocompromised, meaning our immune system is down and it would be quite difficult for us to fight diseases compared to a normal individual. Coping with the rigors of treatment is hard enough already, and any [...]

Dialysis patients have to maintain a certain ideal weight that is established by their clinic’s medical staff. This is called Dry Weight. The excess weight you accumulate in between dialysis sessions would be your Weight Gain and that’s what will be removed from you during treatment in order to attain your Goal or dry weight. Simply said, it’s your actual weight at the time of treatment minus (-) your dry weight equals (=) your Goal. [...]

Summer is one of the seasons we dialysis patients dread. It’s because the intense heat that this season brings makes us want to drink more water to quench our thirst. This is not possible for us patients because we cannot get rid of the excess water we take due to our malfunctioning kidneys. If we weren’t able to discipline our fluid intake, this might lead to fluid overload or edema. Water would accumulate on parts [...]