Modality Part 2 Peritoneal Dialysis

Peritoneal Dialysis (PD) much like home hemo has 2 machines and 2 different types.  The differences in the 2 machines are basically the brand.  Much like Samsung VS I-phone, they both do the same thing just made by different manufacturers and might have some different advantages and disadvantages but they both do the same thing.  When my husband first started with dialysis this was the modality that he chose.  This is also a type of dialysis that you can travel with, but we found it to be a lot of work, but it's really a personal opinion, I am sure there are a lot of people who think the type he does now is a lot of work to travel with.  The way that this type works is that it pumps a certain amount of fluid into your peritoneal space 

 and it basically does the same as hemodialysis but instead of a man-made membrane, it uses your natural membrane that you have in your body.  This type is usually every night, usually about 8 hours at night but for my husband it was 10 hours at night, if you are using the machine.  The 2^nd type is not using a machine but manually doing exchanges, where you hang a bag of dialysis fluid, attach it to your catheter and then drain what fluid you have in your body (if you have any, some patients carry fluid around during the day, while some others don’t) and then you fill it back up using the force of gravity. This is done periodically throughout the day, usually taking 30-40 minutes to get hooked up and complete the exchange, usually done 4-5 times throughout the day.  The nice thing about having the ability to do the manual exchanges is if the power goes out you still can do your dialysis.  

The different types of machines are the Fresenius Machine 

 and the Baxter machine 

  

All 3 modalities work, of course if it didn’t they wouldn’t offer it!  The real choice is which one works best for the patient and their life style! My personal opinion is that PD is great for someone who is smaller because they will have a shorter treatment time in the evening who works during the day.  HHD is great for someone who works during the day and can hook up after work.  In center is hard for some people because you have a select time of day, and select days (usually Mon/Wed/Fri or Tues/Thur/Sat) and you must work your schedule around that.  We went through all 3 modalities before we ended up selecting the one that works best for us and for him!  I hope that this post helps someone out in their decision of which modality to choose from! 

I will also be doing another post about what types of things decide your time on the machines as well as other options you have on top of the type of modality!  This post might come at a different time because I want to start doing posts about other things happening in our lives!  If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask in the question section!