A Healing Presence: Howard Netter, MD
My father, Howard Netter, M.D., spent much of his life welcoming new people into this world. His work as an obstetrician-gynecologist perfectly melded his love for medicine with his absolute respect and joy for humanity. I recently returned to my hometown of Albany, New York to practice holistic medicine and energy healing. After speaking with streams of my father's precious patients I realized that this wonderful clinician and surgeon was, in fact, always practicing holistic medicine as well! He truly cared for every patient's mind, body, and spirit. He offered precisely what each patient needed to feel: supported, nurtured, and respected...When faced with deteriorating renal function and health challenges due to Polycystic Kidney Disease, he practiced what he believed: You must actively participate in your own health care process.
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Adequate or Optimal Dialysis (Podcast)
A frequent term that is used in the dialysis industry is adequate dialysis. Lori and Stephen talk to Dr. Raffi Minasian on how the industry is recognizing that patients need more dialysis to feel better and improve their quality of life. Dr. Minasian explains some of the benefits of more dialysis and the barriers health care professionals encounter to be able to deliver optimal dialysis to their patients
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Avoiding the Telltale Symptons of CKD - What's the Cost? (Podcast)
Valerie Thomerson was both new on the job and finding a new home with her husband when she "just blew off all the symptoms," she said. She had all the warning signs but no family history of disease, and, besides, the new job called for all her attention. How did a security guard save her life? Why did the triage nurse have to take her blood pressure three times before he believed the reading? Now living with a transplanted kidney from a donor at her church, Valerie's story is both inspiring and fascinating.
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Choosing and Caring for Your Vascular Access (Podcast)
On this week's show, Lori Hartwell, Stephen Furst, and their guests talk about the all-important vascular access. The access is how your dialysis staff (or you, if you practice self-care) gain entrance to your bloodstream to perform hemodialysis. The access is so important to hemodialysis patients that it's often called their "lifeline."
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Connecting with Fellow Patients
Times have changed and so has technology. When I was diagnosed with kidney disease 34 years ago, we merely had telephones, televisions, and radios. Today, we have a new way of communicating via cell phones, text messaging, e-mail, and the Internet. No matter which method of communication you prefer, connecting is a useful tool to help learn about ways to live successfully with kidney disease.
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Get Information, Get Tested, Get Hope! (Podcast)
Dr. Roberto Vargas works hard at preventing kidney disease, and working for the best outcomes if someone already has it. In this invaluable show, you will learn what the early warning signs of kidney disease mean, why some minority cultures are at higher risk, and the importance of getting tested, especially if there's been kidney disease in your immediate family. Dr. Vargas holds out hope for patients not to progress to a higher stage of CKD, and even, when conditions are favorable, to regress back to an earlier stage. This is a must-listen for everybody - diagnosed or not.
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Health Promotion, Disease Prevention, and Chronic Kidney Disease
These are but a few ways you can maintain a healthy lifestyle. As you take a more active role in your own healthcare, the benefits of increased energy, general well-being, and a potentially longer life are all possible.
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How Do They Know You Are Okay? Measuring Quality of Care in Dialysis (Podcast)
This is a tough topic, but a necessary one to understand how the dialysis providers measure the quality of your care. Vincent Dennis, MD explains the proposed quality measures (anemia, bone and mineral metabolism, dialysis adequacy and infection) that are monitored carefully and overseen by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It is important that people with kidney disease understand that when a measure is set, it becomes the target for the healthcare provider and patients can suffer if they get it wrong.
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How to Multi-List for a New Kidney
Be aware that it is against federal law to buy or sell an organ in the United States punishable by severe fines and jail time. So unless you decide to go outside of the United States and take the risks in some third world country of buying an organ, you had best learn the "ins and outs" that UNOS allows by Multiple Listing
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How Your Kidneys Work and the Five Stages of Chronic Kidney Disease
Kidney disease is the loss of the kidneys' ability to adequately perform critical functions important to maintaining life. Most renal diseases destroy both kidneys simultaneously, and the damage can occur slowly over many years. The process is usually painless.
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Is Anybody Listening? The Kidney Patient's Role in Doctor/Patient Communication
The question is, "Doctor, can you hear me?" The answer is, "Patient, are you listening?"
This question and this answer are repeated hundreds of times a day as physicians and patients interact. The real question is: "Is anybody listening?" The real answer is: "Very few people are listening."
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Living Long and Well on Dialysis
Your medical team should explain all the different treatment options to you so that you can make an informed decision. Do some research on your own. There is a wealth of information on the Internet. Learn more about the different options and then make a choice that works for you and your family.
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Longer Hemodialysis Is Better than Shorter Hemodialysis
Even one hour longer on dialysis will bring remarkable improvement within only a few weeks! The longer dialysis duration is particularly beneficial in patients who do not make any urine.
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Make the Most of Your Doctor Visit
I have been on this journey now for nearly 10 years. From what I have learned, I recommend that anyone with a life-threatening health condition develop a collaborative partnership with his or her doctor and medical team.
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Overcoming the Stumbling Blocks of Kidney Disease
Did you ever think life just wasn't treating you right? Maybe things were just going along great and the Boom!--something happens to change your entire life's focus. Maybe you thought you had a handle on a particular problem or issue, and then one little change turns your world upside down.
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Overview of Hemodialysis
Hemodialysis (HD) is a treatment option for kidney failure. When confronted with the seriousness of renal or kidney failure, most patients find it difficult to understand all of the various aspects of their treatment. There are many questions that go unasked and unanswered. For example: "How does the artificial kidney or dialyzer work?" Another question commonly asked is: "I see blood going through a series of tubes. What is happening to my blood?" Read on to find the answers to these commonly asked questions.
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PKD: It Runs in the Family (Podcast)
With a family history of PKD - many of her family members have not made it past their 50th birthday - Linda Oakford made two life-affecting decisions in her early 20s which actually helped her meet her husband! This is an inspirational story of courage, of selflessness, and strategizing to life’s realities while finding the silver lining. Tune in for hope and courage now.
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Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) and the PKD Foundation: What Every Family Needs to Know
More than 600,000 Americans and 12.5 million people worldwide battle polycystic kidney disease (PKD) each and every day. PKD is the most common of all life-threatening genetic diseases, affecting more people than Down’s syndrome, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, and Huntington's disease combined. Yet, there is no treatment or cure for PKD.
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Preserving Your Lifeline: What You Should Know About Vascular Access Monitoring and Surveillance
As a patient using a graft or fistula for dialysis, one of your highest priorities for maintaining your health and well-being is to make sure that your vascular access is working properly. Problems with your access can decrease the effectiveness of your treatments and lead to hospitalization or loss of your access. What can be done to help keep your access working properly?
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Seeing the Big Picture: Communicating With Your Nephrologist About Goals and Expectations
What are the expectations of my patients, and how do they compare with my own expectations of them? Is there more that we can do together to allow patients to accomplish those goals? Free and open communication is an absolute necessity if patients are to achieve their goals and not fall prey to the trap of low expectations coming either from themselves or their caregivers.
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Taking Charge of Your Dialysis & Your Life! (Podcast)
Susan Hansen RN, CNN, Director of Clinical Business Development at Renal Solutions, Inc., chats with Lori Hartwell and Stephen Furst about taking charge of your dialysis and your care. Sue’s knowledge and experience go back to 1965, during the beginning stages of maintenance / chronic dialysis.
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Ten Transplant Tips
Having a transplant can be a wonderful experience, but as in all aspects of treatment you must do your part. What is your part, you ask? Let’s look at the top ten things that you need to know to be successful with a kidney transplant.
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The Advantages of Home Nightly Nocturnal Hemodialysis
The renewed interest in this modality is the result of several recent studies on improving the quality of dialysis. These studies have demonstrated very well that nocturnal dialysis patients are doing much better than they have done on standard in-center dialysis.
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The Good Dialysis Index
The "Good Dialysis Index" (GDI) potentially offers a more humane model of the dialysis patient as a whole. The GDI design attempts to mirror more closely the things that matter - not only to the nephrologist but to the patient - in the delivery of 'good dialysis'. Certainly, it serves this aim better than does the urea-centric, mathematically limited concept of Kt/V, restricted as it is to the narrow confines of small solute clearance. The GDI remains to be rigorously tested and validated as a predictive tool in the dialysis population, but it has certainly been simple and quick and easily applied when run against a small pilot patient group.
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The Kidney Connection - Anemia and Kidney Disease
Anemia can be either a temporary or a long-term disease/illness. People with mild anemia may not have any symptoms, or they may have only mild symptoms. Those with severe anemia can feel tired, get short of breath with activity, and have problems doing the things they usually do.
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The Kidney Connection - Diabetes Mellitus
Only 5%-10% of those with diabetes suffer from the more serious type 1 diabetes. In this type, the body stops making insulin, resulting in the need for the patient to take insulin daily.This type is more likely to lead to kidney failure. Up to 40% of those with type 1 develop kidney failure by the age of 50.
The vast majority (90%-95%) of diabetic patientshave type 2 diabetes and do not require daily insulin doses. Type 2 most often occurs in people over 40, but can occur at any age. Many are overweight and do not know they have the disease.
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The Kidney Connection - Glomerulonephritis
Glomerulonephritis (GN), also known as glomerular disease, can be either acute such as a sudden inflammation attack or chronic, which occurs gradually. It can occur as part of a systemic disease like diabetes or lupus or it can be a disease on its own, known as primary GN.
Mini-epidemics of the condition have occurred in certain geographic areas and is most common in individuals aged 40 to 60. The condition sometimes runs in families, indicating a genetic factor.
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The Kidney Connection - Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS)
Hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) is the most common cause of sudden, short-term kidney failure in children, and is most common in kids aged six months to four years. While the condition is more prevalent in children, adults can also get it. Progression to acute kidney failure occurs in about 50% of HUS cases.
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The Kidney Connection - Hypertension
What is hypertension, or high blood pressure (BP)? It's when the force of the blood pumping against the walls of your blood vessels is too high. This causes your heart to struggle to pump blood through the arteries to the rest of your body. Hypertension also damages the blood vessels by making them more narrow and their walls thickerand "harder" (a.k.a atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries).
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The Kidney Connection - IgA Nephropathy
IgA nephropathy, also called Berger's disease, was named for the doctor who originally discovered the condition in 1927. It is caused by abnormal deposits of a kind of protein that helps fight infection known as immunoglobulin A (IgA) inside the glomeruli (small blood vessels of the kidneys), resulting in inflammation of the glomeruli.
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The Kidney Connection - Lupus Nephritis
Lupus is short for "lupus erythematosus." The word "lupus" is the Latin word for "wolf." It was named because of the skin rash resembling a wolf's bite that some patients get over the bridge of their nose.
Lupus is an autoimmune disease because the immune system, which usually protects the body from illness, turns against it. This causes harm to organs and tissues, including the skin, joints, kidneys, and brain.
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The Kidney Connection - Renal Bone Disease
Many patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are unaware that the kidney is involved with the health of their bones. Renal bone disease (a.k.a renal osteodystrophy) occurs when your kidneys fail to maintain the proper levels of calcium and phosphorus in your blood.
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The Kidney Connection - Restless Legs Syndrome
Restless legs syndrome (RLS) is a movement disorder that causes uncomfortable, unpleasant sensations in the legs. It affects up to 10% of the US population and as many as 40% of those on dialysis. The condition mostly affects older individuals.
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The Kidney Connection - Secondary Hyperparathyroidism
The most common cause of SHPT is CKD. SHPT occurs when damaged kidneys do not convert enough vitamin D to its active form or they may not excrete enough phosphorus.
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The Kidney Connection - Sex and Sexuality
What is sexuality? Many believe it refers only to sexual intercourse, but it actually has a much broader definition. It also refers to self-image, how you communicate with other people, and simply building a relationship. It includes such activities as touching, kissing, and hugging, or just being with each other and participating in activities you both enjoy.
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The Kidney Connection - Skin and Hair Problems
Skin and hair problems affect many people on dialysis. As a dialysis patient, your skin may appear to be more fragile and may tear or bruise more easily than normal.
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The Renal Teen Prom-Part 2 (Podcast)
This is the second part of our two part series on RSN's 8th annual Renal Teen Prom. Last week we visited with the teens, guests, and volunteers. This week Lori and Stephen talk with the great celebrities who came out and lent their support to this fantastic event. The teens were excited to have the chance to mingle with the celebs and collect their autographs. The prom just wouldn't be the same without the wonderful support of the stars! The locale of the prom-Notre Dame High School-came alive with guest appearances by Sinbad, Alexa Vega, Gary Sinise, John McCook, Christy Carlson Romano, and the LA Clippers Dance team.
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The Truth About Protein
People who have been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often find themselves confronted with many lifestyle changes, with diet being one of the most challenging. But there are steps that can be taken to help delay the start of dialysis. This article briefly reviews the components of a CKD diet with the primary goal to maintain optimal nutrition. There is no “one-size-fits-all” diet. Your diet needs to be individualized based on your kidney function, other medical conditions, and nutritional status.
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The Use of Peritoneal Dialysis in the Management of Kidney Failure
Peritoneal dialysis (PD) is one of the generally available and internationally used forms of treatment and management of patients who reach end-stage kidney failure. It is the primary form of treatment for renal failure used at home and for self-dialysis.
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Tips on Adhering to a Medication Regimen For the Dialysis and Kidney Transplant Patient
As a dialysis or kidney transplant patient, you know that taking medication the way it is prescribed is one of the most important things you can do to help keep yourself as healthy as possible. Even though you know how important it is, medication is not always the easiest thing to swallow.
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Tips on How a Dialysis Facility and Patients Can Prepare for an Emergency
“An emergency stops being one when you are ready for it.”
These words are important to reflect upon when you realize that, during the last few years, the United States has experienced several disasters (particularly Hurricane Katrina) that seriously disrupted the lives of many dialysis patients because they could not get to their clinics to receive treatments. Emergencies caused by severe weather (hurricanes, earthquakes, snowstorms, power outages, etc.) can occur suddenly and without warning. Your availability to water, power, transportation, or supplies may be limited. You may not be able to get to your dialysis unit for treatment or give yourself treatments at home. Therefore, the importance of being prepared for such events cannot be overstated.
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Transitioning Out of Childhood for Young People with CKD (Podcast)
Lori has a heart-to-heart with Dr. Maria Ferris, Pediatric Nephrologist from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and specialist in treating adolescents and young adults with CKD. They discuss the unique challenges a young person can face, both those with childhood-onset CKD and those who develop CKD in their adolescence. Dr. Ferris and the team at UNC Kidney Center have developed helpful guidelines and tools for young people with CKD and their parents to help "smooth" what can often be a difficult transition; growing up can have a whole new meaning when you have CKD! All this and more, including discussion on the challenges of completing your education when you have CKD.
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Understanding Anemia: Learn all you can about this energy draining condition (Podcast)
Okay, all you couch kidneys out there, listen up! (We can’t be couch potatoes because we have to watch our potassium, right?!). Do you feel tired? Out of energy? Cold? Have you failed the “stair test”?
On KidneyTalk this week, Lori and Stephen discuss anemia (a complication of chronic kidney disease) with Dr. Mahesh Krishnan, Medical Director of Amgen in the Dialysis Services Department and author of The Kidney Guide.
Dial in to your favorite Internet station − KidneyTalk − and learn why you need to know about anemia, how it affects kidney patients, the treatment for it, and other important issues regarding this energy-draining disease. You’ll also find out how to energize yourself and stop being a couch kidney!
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Understanding Your Monthly Dialysis Lab Values
Laboratory values are only one of many ways that your healthcare is monitored. These values, like many aspects of kidney care, have clinical guidelines and standards for care that have been analyzed and recommended by experts
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What Can Patients Do to Delay the Progression to Complete Kidney Failure?
Your doctor has just informed you that you have chronic kidney disease (CKD). Rather than being a specific diagnosis, CKD means that your kidney function is not completely normal for someone of your age, gender, and race. In CKD, some of the filtering units of the kidneys are not functional. Because of that, the remaining filtering units are working "overtime" in a compensatory attempt to maximize kidney function. While this is helpful in the short run, continued overworking of the filtering units over time may lead to scarring and progressive failure.
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What Patients Need to Understand About Quality Assurance in the Dialysis Center
Quality assurance and continuous quality improvement (QA/CQI) are critical components in the hemodialysis (HD) center. Correctly implemented and managed, QA/CQI not only improves outcomes that have been established by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the End-Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) Networks, and the individual dialysis companies, it also improves the quality of life for the HD patient.
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Why Can't I Get Medigap Insurance? (Podcast)
Supplemental Medigap insurance is a must when you have kidney disease. Unfortunately, dialysis patients are denied access to Medigap insurance in over 20 States. Wendy Funk-Schrag and Lori Hartwell discuss how this impacts patients and what you can do to educate your elected officials to help change this unfair public policy.
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