Dialysis

The purpose of dialysis is to remove toxins and waste products from the blood in patients who have kidney failure. It is not a cure. Kidney failure is incurable, however some patients can have a kidney donor transplants.

There are two types: Haemodialysis (used in an emergency) and Peritoneal (used for people with kidney failure). You only need to learn one.

Haemodialysis is the technique used in emergency services - such as acute kidney damage, poisoning or drug overdose. 

In emergency cases where one treatment will be sufficient a catheter is inserted into a vein to extract for dialysis. 

• It involves inserting a needle, attached by tube into a dialysis machine, into a blood vessel. 
• Blood is transferred from the body into the machine, which filters out waste products and excess fluids.
• The machine continuously pumps blood from the patient across an artificial membrane through which waste products diffuse. 
• To make up some of the liquid and minerals lost through filtering, a saline solution is fed into the clean blood. 
• The clean blood is the passed back into your body via another needle inserted in then downstream end of the shunt; the process can take around 4 hours and for most, the treatment has to be repeated every two days.