Hi everyone. New to the site but learning a lot from everyone’s input.
My father has been on PD now for 1 year. Lately he has been experiencing lot of nausea at times right after getting off the cycler in the morning. This will last throughout the day and results in low appetite.
No sign of peritonitis. It doesn’t happen everyday but when it does occur it can be quite debilitating.
He never had this issue when he first started but now is happening within last 3 or 4 months. Last kt/v was 1.77 so i think clearance is good per his doctor.
He thinks he gets quite bloated by his last drain cycle and maybe that leads to the nausea? His PD nurse had changed his settings since a lot of drain alarms where going off and i wonder if that has anything to do with it.
Open to hearing if anyone has any suggestions or things we should be asking his nephrologist? Thank you
Has your father seen a GI doctor? There are many possible causes of nausea in peritoneal dialysis. Some I’ve read about include gastric reflux, delayed gastric emptying, peptic ulcer, H pylori infection, peritonitis, diverticulosis, and even constipation. A GI doctor would need to do tests to determine the cause.
I started home dialysis a month ago. I too have noticed nausea and lack of appetite after dialysis.
I’ve noticed that I NEED to eat some good quality food after dialysis and this keeps the sick feeling away. It also helped when I reprogrammed my machine to reduce the amount of fluid it pumps into me every cycle. It was previously too much and Dr told me and nurse to reduce the volume. I’ve felt safer eating more knowing the volume of fluid is less now.
I find that a little fresh fruit does wonders for reviving my appetite. A little bit of spicy cabbage kimchee that I can nibble on during meals also helps me to eat and drink more. Meat is especially important to eat, but it gets unappetizing for us on dialysis. I’m not saying you should be vegan. I find just a little healthy, living food helps my body accept and desire the meat.
StarBlazer,
If you’re using the cycler overnight while you sleep, did you have nausea and low appetite at breakfast or all day? How are your labs on your new dialysis prescription? If meat tastes unappetizing, does it have a metallic taste? If so, that can happen when dialysis isn’t removing enough wastes. The PD diet is not as strict as the diet on in-center HD, but I’d talk with your dietitian about the cabbage kimchi as it looks like it can be high in sodium and has a fair amount of potassium.
As you say, it’s important to eat high quality food and people on PD need eat more high quality protein to offset what PD removes. Your dietitian can advise you about what foods are safe for you to eat and which ones you might need to limit based on your labs. You might also want to check out Module 9 in Kidney School on nutrition.
I just had the PD surgery in late October, so I had been eating lightly not wanting to overload my guts while they were healing. Then I started the actual PD and didn’t want to eat too much since I didn’t feel I had room for too much food. I just know that my appetite was really low so I didn’t think I minded at the time, but eating enough good food banished the nausea.
I felt the advice to eat was really important because it was just a couple weeks ago I was drifting into a cycle of not eating enough, feeling tired and nauseated, and then not wanting to bother getting or prepping food, then more sick feeling. Best thing to do is break the cycle by eating.
My last labs were pretty darn good. I have to blame the ACTIVATED vitamin D supplement of the Naomi brand I started taking. My Hemoglobin actually went up to 14.0 for the first time since my kidneys failed. I was always slightly anemic up until then. A couple other numbers improved too.
I capitalized ‘activated’ because I was told by the dietician our kidneys are responsible for activating vitamin D. I’ve been severely deficient in vitamin D in the past.
I think I can detect the quality or cleanliness of meat now that my kidneys have failed. I can smell two different brands of beef jerky, and one can smell a bit stinkey while the other smells delicious.
I don’t eat a tremendous amount of kimchee. It’s more of a garnish that is useful for stimulating the taste buds which makes me thirsty and hungry.