I spent a good deal of time with a local nephrologist who runs a short daily program now but will soon start with a new machine that doesn’t even use water and he says is very easy to use. because I am already doing nocturnal dialysis I will be his first patient, I guess I will need less training than others.
I am so looking forward to this as I now have to travel over 60 miles in NYC bound traffic to get to my center. I wonder how I would handle it if we get snowbound.
wish me luck. don’t know when my start date will be but I hope soon.
Sounds like the NxStage machine. It can’t be used for slow but was recently approved for home use. It is a cool small machine. I am very interested in it too as it looks like the “cartridge” system should be extremely easy and fast to set up and it doesn’t need to be hooked up to a water supply which should also speed up the process.
I missed my dialysis today (my fourth training session) because of a problem with the r/o system and they had no back/up. It was hard sitting there for 2 1/2 hours doing nothing but waiting for the water to “work”. We finally gave up when they determined it would take a minimum of 2 1/2 more hours.
Wow, I’m so envious and excited for you! No more treks to NYC; I guess that newly toll free ride wasn’t what it was cracked up to be lol I’ll be waiting to hear about the new machine that doesn’t use water. I hope it goes really well so I can pitch it to unit I’m at! Lin.
I am currently using the NxStage machine at home and I LOVE it. I dialyze 6 days a week and run about 2 hours 15 minutes. Because I dialyze everyday, I feel GREAT. No more leaving work early, or getting up in the dead of night to fit dialysis into my schedule. I am a working mom who has been on dialysis since 1990. I have done CAPD, received and lost a transplant, and have been doing hemo since 1999. This is the best I have felt in years and my energy levels are amazing.
Thank you for the report Patti. Could you say where you are located/who your provider is?
Pattie I am so encouraged by your report. I should be starting next month. one big advantage is the “travelability” (is that a word?) because my sig. other is rehabbing a big old sailboat and wants to go on long vogages, I guess if we set down somewhere we can have supplies delivered.
I am so looking forward to this. as to the setup for the Fresenius, it takes at least an hour, factoring in the bicarb prep you can add to that. cleanup including acid rinse and heat disinfection is another process, and chemical rinse weekly takes nearly an hour. not that you have to be there physically but someone has to turn off the water.
Patti, you say you run about 2hrs and 15 minutes. Could this time be easily extended?
Hi Patty,
Welcome to the message boards, and thank you so much for sharing your experiences with the NxStage machine–it’s so new that not many of us know what it’s like to use it, so your reports are very helpful. 
Patty and Helen, please keep us informed about this new machine! Patty just reading your post impressed me! Gosh, if I could have the time and energy to go out to work again that would be amazing for me. To be able to go out of town even for a few days to visit family would be super. I’m hoping this machine (or the AKSYS) shows to be very promising. Hope to pitch it to the unit I’m in! They only currently offer ccpd.
Helen, I may drive down there just to see it. How far (approx.) is it from NW NJ best estimate? Lin.
Lin it is about 65 miles from the Bronx, add to that the trip on Rt. 80 across NJ, unless there is an “as the bird flies” route that I don’t know about. but don’t worry, I will keep you as informed as I can.
I am with a unit in Encino, CA, northwest of LA. The dialysis time is based on several factors, including weight, which determines the total dialysate to be processed, the amount of UF to be removed, the UF rate, which varies from person to person, etc. I run about 2 hours fifteen minutes each day and remove from .75 to 1.25 liters each day.
Pattie, does this system add fluid at the start as does hemo as we know it? your removal sounds low but like in PKD, you may still produce urine.
since it doesn’t use water, it follows that it does not need to remove what it adds (something I always wondered about).
The NxStage website has expanded tremendously in the last few weeks. You might want to surf around their site to see if you can find the answers to some of your questions there. See http://www.nxstage.com.
The Aksys and Fresenius don’t give us water via the water systems, we get fluid from the IV"s filling the lines and returning our blood. I am pretty sure this is exactly the same on the NxStage, ie, you will have prime and rinseback.
Hi y’all,
Say, Pattie, if you’re checking back on this board, Debby wanted to correspond with someone who is using the NxStage System 1 for home dialysis. She started a new thread at: http://www.homedialysis.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=71
I just want to expand a little on Cathy’s comment. The Aksys uses ultra-pure dialysate instead of saline. The Aksys can give you the prime or discard the prime. At the beginning of a run when the machine is ready for treatment and my needles are in, I attach the needle lines to the Aksys’ blood tubing set (BTS). The BTS is pre-primed with ultra-pure dialysate and since my settings are set to discard prime when I press the “green button” the machine draws blood up both lines at the same time removing the ultra-pure dialysate through the F-80 kidney. My blood is sucked up both lines at the same time until the venous and arterial flows meet in the F-80.
If during treatment I feel low and want some fluid I press the “blue button” and 100 ml of Ultra pure Dialysate (UPD) is infused through the F-80. The Aksys also infuses 200 ml of UPD every 15 minutes (subject to the settings the user chooses) in a process called backflushing. The net result is that my Ultra Filtration Rate (UFR) is much higher than it otherwise would run.
Like Patty I usually need between .5 and 1.5 litters removed per daily treatment (another advantage of more frequent dialysis), so let’s assume I need 1.5 removed over a three hour run to reach my dry weight - since the prime is discarded my UFR should be .5 litters/hour but because of the backflush process my actual UFR is 1.3 L/hour (adding in the .8 litters infused over four backflushes each hour). I think this higher UFR is another advantage of the Aksys because I think a UFR over 1.0 L/hour removes waste through convection in addition to diffusion, so you end up getting better dialysis per time on the machine.
As far as the rinse back I think that nets out to zero. The machine rinses back both lines at the same time by infusing UPD through the F-80 - I’m sure I get some of the fluid during rinseback but I think it is a small enough amount that it is not figured into the goal - I may be mistaken and 100 or so ml could be added into the equation.
hmmm… so much for expanding on Cathy’s comments just a little. When you start to write it all out it looks allot more involved than it is in practice. All I do is enter my pre-weight and so long as the machine has my correct dry weight it does all the calculations. I’d be interested in how the NxStage works out fluid control, I assume it does not use saline either.