Can you use Extranial once or twice a day for effective manual dialysis, or must you do three or four exchanges to have effective dialysis?
Hey Rhona, the answer to your question is going to really depend on how much treatment is needed, how much treatment the patient is willing to do, how the patient expects to feel, etc. Some prescribers start low (“incremental”) with less exchanges than standard (which would be 4). I have absolutely heard of incremental PD prescriptions that use Extraneal for a long dwell-- sometimes as the only dialysis until more is needed. Others have prescriptions with other variations. I know there have been attempts at trying a twice daily Extraneal, but it’s still not common practice or recommended.