Hi! I have been on PD for 9 months now and I am leaving for to go out of the country. I am will have to do exchanges throughout the day instead of my nightly treatments. Does anyone have any tips on traveling while on PD. I will be gone for a month and I am concerned about doing my exchanges in a place that is not as sterile as my home. Any advice will be helpful. I leave June 15th for the Dominican Republic. Thanks.:
Hi Skiweaka. Two words: Hand sanitizer.
PD is the most often done type of dialysis in places like Mexico, where conditions may not always be perfectly clean. There are folks in the U.S. who live on Native American reservations without running water who successfully do PD.
Keep your hands and site clean, and do what’s in your power to control air flow (will there be a car, maybe, where you can do your connections?). Ask your PD training nurse for tips, too. (We are not nurses or doctors here).
Ski I don’t but there there is a lady on the forum who travels with her husband. I think they live in Australia and last year they traveled to Europe with no problems since they planed ahead. I can’t remember their names. I hope she sees your post.
Also call you supplier. I just know that something can be worked out for you even though June 15 is not too far away. Be sure to take plenty of you cleaning supplies.
Thank you for the great advice. Yes, I will have access to a car and a room which I can make sterile with bleach. I do plan to take my own soap and other supplies. My solution was shipped there a month before my arrival and recently cleared customs and is now at the home I will be in. This is why I changed to PD because it is less restrictive and I can travel!
Ski sounds like you have everything under control. How about keeping in touch and telling us how your tirp is going. This like this will really help others on PD. I don’t think there is enough input for PD patients telling others how good things can be.
I am one who thinks that encouragement to others is a great thing.
Dianne
Dianne, I will do definitely do that. I have been reading the post for a year now and didn’t feel like I had much to contribute but having a positvie attitude is really the key to success with this lifestyle. I will not have Internet connection where I am going. Its pretty rural and I will be doing missions work with an orphanage over there. I will definitely post once I return! Thanks for your support.
Hello D and thank you for your quick response. My supplier is Fresenius and they have been awesome with helping me plan for this trip and shipping my boxes so I can do exchanges every day. Great advice on the cleaning supplies, I really appreciate that!
I will be waiting to hear from you Ski. I feel anything postive is a great help to those on dialysis or looking to go on dialysis. I got so depressed when I joined this site. Everything was so bad. Very little good was posted. That is why I thought it was important to post what was postive in our lives. I want to encourage others. Dialysis is a shocker but it is not the end of the world.
Good for you that you are on a mission trip. My hat is off to you. What a testimony you are to others. Just waiting to hear about the good work that you did while on your trip.
Dianne
I am playing at my laptop and hubby is sitting in his chair watching the NASCAR race. A normal Sunday afternoon for us. He watches the races and sleeps and I either read and check in on my favorite sites on the computer.
It is real good that you have such a great supplier. Baxter is our supplier and they are so good. I really like the guy who brings all those boxes each month.
Dianne
Dear Skiweaka,
My husband on I, he is the PD patient, travelled to Singapore from Australia in January.
My husband is on Fresenius night time machine and Fresenius in Sydney organised a machine to be delived to where we were staying, and all the supplies as well. They came from their Singapore branch of the company.
We live in rural NSW and flew from our town to Sydney and stayed overnight in a motel.
George carried enough fluid in his hand luggage in the event that the plane was delayed and he had to do a manual exchange. He also did manual in Sydney. He was told to travel empty, which he did with no ill effects. We planned it well, wrote out a timetable when he would do is exchanges and it all went according to plan.
He had a letter from his nephrologist as well as G.P. and going through customs was no problem at all.
Could you organise a machine to be delivered to where you are staying?
Fresenius have been wonderful to us over the 41/2 years that George has been in dialysis
I would feel confident to travel anywhere in the world with their help. Good Luck.
George is 72 years old by the way.
Hello and thank you for your response. Unfortunately, the country that I am traveling to does not have the electrical power to support my cycler so I will have to do manual exchanges for the month that I am there. I don’t have a problem doing that since I used manuals for weekend trips and such. Customs was a headache for my supplies that were shipped there last month. They were just released about a week ago and it was somewhat costly (storage and custom broker fees). I do encourage PD to travel since it is a viable option for us. I do plan to take manuals with me in my carry on bag.
It’s great that you thought ahead about clearing customs and allowed enough time for it. 