BFR through the lens of NxStage

Dr Agar I was interested to read that Geelong is getting, or already has, a NxStage cycler of its own to play with; I’m wondering if you could talk about BFR and clearances given NxStage’s linkage of Qb and Qd.

We plan a trial next month.

We havent yet got close and personal so I am still a NxStage novice: my last and only contacts with the equipment being during my sabbatical at North West Kidney Centers in Seattle in 2006 and a brief visit from Seattle down to John Moran, then in Palo Alto, where I loaded and ‘played with’ a few machines. Beyond that, all I know about NxStage is the usual lecture introductions - a far cry from getting down and dirty with the machine itself to see how and what it does.

So … sorry Bill, but your question comes too early. Maybe later … not only after we have trialled it in our home training area, but if, when and after we have made our decision to adopt the technology into our program. Maybe this is a question for 2012 and beyond …

As a follow-up Bill …

I am captivated by the concept advanced to me by Bob Lockridge … to treat the NxStage as a ‘time’ machine and not a ‘flow’ machine. As a childhood devotee of H G Wells, I can’t put that suggestion aside without understanding the idea better.

As the thought has has interested me, I plan to take his intriguing comment - and develop it further in my head as we get more familiar with the machine over the ensuing weeks.

I may come back on that one … unless, that is, I disappear into another dimension and never manage to find my way back