Aksys does not have a machine that pages the tech. YOu have to wait until you see the alarm and then call for them to dispatch a tech. They do have to fly if they are not in your area and they have a 24hr response time policy so they have until the next day to service your machine. If it goes down you can 99.9% of the time gaurantee to miss one Tx and possibly two or three more because it has to go through a complete recycle until you can use it again.
Someone correct me if my conclusion is wrong, but, having done this daily dialysis for over 6 months now, I find there’s a paradox when it comes to the idea of being able to easily miss treatments without problem. I’m just not sure this is completely true. I suppose it’s true for one treatment in most cases, but 2 or 3!? I’m not sure that as a patient I would be comfortable with that. Let me explain why.
When you do daily hemo (short or nocturnal), you take advantage of the much less limited diet and fluid restriction. There is virtually no restriction at all for nocturnal, at least. But in terms of your body, there’s still a limit to how much fluid and potassium you can hold in. You have esrd, so, it’s not going anywhere. The paradox is that you can eat and drink normally, but, you could be forced to miss more than one treatment after having eaten and drank heartily. I fully understand a person could go multiple days without dialysis in an emergency, but, that’s not to say it would be very comfortable. Given that, I don’t think I would be very enthusiastic about any home dialysis program where I couldn’t be reasonably assured of being back in business before the next scheduled treatment. Missing one treatment is not too bad, but I would not want to miss more than that everytime something goes wrong.
Pierre
Guest writes;
Aksys does not have a machine that pages the tech. YOu have to wait until you see the alarm and then call for them to dispatch a tech. They do have to fly if they are not in your area and they have a 24hr response time policy so they have until the next day to service your machine. If it goes down you can 99.9% of the time gaurantee to miss one Tx and possibly two or three more because it has to go through a complete recycle until you can use it again.
On average, how often does this occur? Do patients always get txs in-center or do they miss txs?
Hello All,
been away and busy.
Re: Aksys ready times
I have one of the newer Model C machines…it says on screen that it will be ready in 14 hours then is ready in about 12 at most 13. This occurs every treatment. It wasn’t so with my earlier model C.
I think you have the A model, right Bill ?
I have almost never missed a treatment for an alarm I wasn’t aware of, once a month on average I will get an overnight alarm since it is getting ready for an 7 AM Tx. The bug-a-boo is when my rural power goes out in the day if i’M away, I come home to an alarm and the puppy dogs and kitty kat don’t like it.
I have been considering a once a week 8 hr Tx…afternoon snooze treatment.
I wonder if I would need Heparin. I don’t use but 1.5 cc per line now and I only Heparinze ‘the lines’ before priming so that the heparin coats the lines, with the dialysate back-flush every 15 min. I think it might work.
I usually Heparinize with the lines post with 5cc of the 5x heparin and I’m routinely getting 0% decline throughout the course of the Dialyzer life.
What thinketh thou, Mr. Bill? BTW, I got my problem with the Dialysate pressures cleared up …they had reversed the power leads to the valves on the Stainless Steel Tank and the software was mis-interpreting the presures and wouldn’t allow greater than 500 Dialysate Pressure.
I had been ‘fighting’ the Aksys guys for months over machine vs operator error… an engineer’s favorite debate. This time the operator won 
Guillaume
Guillaume writes:
I have almost never missed a treatment for an alarm I wasn’t aware of, once a month on average I will get an overnight alarm since it is getting ready for an 7 AM Tx. The bug-a-boo is when my rural power goes out in the day if i’M away, I come home to an alarm and the puppy dogs and kitty kat don’t like it.
Need to know if the alarms can be a problem for patient doing 5-6x week 8 hr. nocturnal txs on PHD?
Need to know if the alarms can be a problem for patient doing 5-6x week 8 hr. nocturnal txs on PHD?
Sorry, misunderstood the ‘aim’ of your question…don’t know of anyone on PHD doing that at this time.
This is occurs very offten and it depends on the clinic if they can get a backup Tx scheduled in time. But most often they miss one or two days. This has happened up to 1-6 times a month.
This is occurs very offten and it depends on the clinic if they can get a backup Tx scheduled in time. But most often they miss one or two days. This has happened up to 1-6 times a month.
Who ARE you, Tucker???
It’s not that I think you’re lying…I don’t know but even if you were telling the truth, there’s nothing balanced in what you say. You obviously have an agenda. It’s like according to your posts you have prescience… so how many treatments did I miss in the last 6 months, how many days did I wait for technical assistance? You know I am interested in what patients do and expierience and the only way “I” can find out is through this board cuz no body else is talking …not the centers, not Aksys, not NextStage…for the companies they are very protective of their customers…I’d like to interact with patients even in my area but the clinics are VERY protective of information… I just don’t know how you get the information you say you do…
Well, the answer is: I have not missed one treatment in 6 months, I got one back up and that day I scheduled the obligatory in-center Iron that I had to do anyway…I had 2 machine glitches and took those as days off …Aksys came out the same day and fixed the machine…
I don’t know all Aksys 's history of product line, but I understand from the chief of techs that their reliability has improved greatly…and I’m satisfied with mine.
I don’t think anybody is going to pay attention to people with an obvious agenda…maybe try a different ploy with another name…
ciao
Guillaume
Guest wrote:
Aksys does not have a machine that pages the tech. YOu have to wait until you see the alarm and then call for them to dispatch a tech. They do have to fly if they are not in your area and they have a 24hr response time policy so they have until the next day to service your machine. If it goes down you can 99.9% of the time gaurantee to miss one Tx and possibly two or three more because it has to go through a complete recycle until you can use it again.
Dear Guest or Tucker,
My tech does not fly in but does fly elsewhere to repair machines , The PHD takes bet. 12-14 hours to recycle, NOT 24 , but only if the treatmet cycle is ‘lost’ because of what the ‘fix’ did , many times it is not.
When I first got my Aksys, I couldn’t use it for about a week…they do not like being moved …they are big and heavey and complex and moving into my house, off loading and up stairs, she(she has a name but I don’t know any one here well enough to share it, but it’s pretty) got Ornery!
Anyway after that she has been EXTREMELY faithful and reliable.
I really don’t know what other patients experience, but I might be one of the lucky ones, I don’t know and most of the others arn’t complaining or like Debbie in Texas swithed to something else. But apparently you do know for some reason… I don’t mind the patients saying whatever they like but it sure galls me to have folks with unknown agendas on here pushing their cause on people who are just trying to find something that will work for them.
(BTW your lack of Balance, and statistical absolutism remind me of Tucker)
See my other post about Tucker…search Tucker
Ciao,
Guillaume
Hi Guillaume,
Thank you for all your recent posts. I have lost track of the discussion and I cannot always post to threads that interest me but I do want to be a resource if legitimate people have questions. I do have an ‘A’ model – machine #5 and I also have very few problems.
I am not sure about running 8 hours without heparin. When I did it I needed a heparin pump but everyone is different so you might be able to do it. Do you have “y” connectors? With your low heparin needs you may have the ability to get by with a booster bolus of heparin that could be administered through the “y” connector. Talk to the center and see what they say – if you try it I will be interested in hearing how you feel.
Yeah, Bill, I’m hip deep in “y” 's. 
I use them everyday even though I rarely use them for the delivery of anything …it makes the needle line long enough to get the arteriol line in my mouth for connecton and deconnetion purposes.
Im a LUAF…
I’m not averse to trying it out…usually I pay close attention to venous values to see if clots are forming…I may lose a bit of blood if I clot some, but you’re absolutely right if I need it I can always bolus a little through the “Y”. In the past I have dialyzed heparinless with saline boluses every half hour…The difference will be the dialysate vs. saline for clot prevention.
Different subject question…Does the Nextstage use Acetate or Lactate dialysis…I’m not familiar with the latter and I read a post of your refering to that.
Guillaume