Kidney failure info

[scottyp123]

My mate will shortly be on his way to Turkey where his mum is in hospital with kidney failure apparently. She is on holiday there with her partner but after a few phone calls it seems the hospital isn't telling anyone anything. The partner isn't even allowed in the hospital, cant get any info from anyone and when my mate tries to phone the hospital they just put the phone down on him so they are both totally in the dark about it at the moment.

I know its wrong to speculate about such things but what is likely to have happened? She is 56 and currently in ICU after having some sort of operation. I don't think she is an alki but does like a drink or two and they always seem to be on holiday nowadays since her partner has retired I think otherwise she is fit and healthy. Is it likely the operation was to remove a kidney or is there something else they do? I'm not even too sure whether they will even let my mate in to see her when he gets there so they might still not know anything.

[elanfan]

Hard to speculate here. I suffered kidney failure after a bout of food poisoning. I was ill in my bedroom for 15 days, was physically sick several times couldn’t eat or drink, dreadfully tired. Got sent to hospital my kidney function was just 4%. I was never dialysed in hospital and left hospital a few weeks later with a function of 11%. Didn’t take long after that to be put on dialysis.

My guess is the surgery was to put some lines in either chest or neck to enable dialysis. If her kidney failure is permanent she will have a fistula created in the wrist. Local anaesthetic operation to join a vein to an artery which fattens a vein due to increased pressure and allows dialysis needles to be inserted in the forearm..the dialysis will be done via the lines in the neck until the fistula matures.

Hope this helps but might be totally wrong.

Please keep us updated.

[scottyp123]

Cheers for the reply, his flight is in about an hour to go an see her, if they let him in. The hospital are refusing point blank to let her partner through the doors as they aren't married, hope its different for her son.

[elanfan]

If she has holiday insurance look at having her repatriated - medical flight??

[bomb]

As elanfan says, its very difficult to speculate, so best not to. I am a kidney patient, having had a long standing family problem with kidneys.

My decline was a slow process over 20+ years, and I ended up having a kidney transplant, with my new kidney donated by my wife. A real life saver. Its been a long and rocky road.

Anyway, the cause and type of failure may be a number of things. Hope she makes a recovery soonest. Would be keen to hear how she gets on. Fingers crossed for her recovery.

[scottyp123]

elanfan said:

If she has holiday insurance look at having her repatriated - medical flight??

Thats what I told him to try first.

[elanfan]

Any updates Scotty?

[scottyp123]

elanfan said:

Any updates Scotty?

Got a text this afternoon from him, he says its divisculitus (thats how he has spelt it) but the only thing that shows up googling is Diverticulitis which is some sort of gastro/intestine problem. He then goes on to say she already knew she was suffering from it and she was severely dehydrated because her kidneys wasn't working at all although they are working a bit now apparently. Still not sure what the operation was all about.

If she already knew about the first problem then that won't be too clever regarding the travel insurance will it?

[elanfan]

If it’s a pre existing condition it’s highly unlikely to be covered.

I suspect she’s had lines inserted for dialysis like this

[bomb]

scottyp123 said:

If she already knew about the first problem then that won't be too clever regarding the travel insurance will it?

That depends upon what she has declared to her insurers. I know that every little thing MUST be declared or they wriggle out of covering you.

Sounds like she is making progress now though. Hope she improves soonest.

[K77 CTR]

It will be an acute kidney injury which has 3 levels, 3 being the worst and 1 not as bad. It is all down to how well the kidney filters your waste products. It's either pre renal so something before the kidneys causing it, usually low blood pressure, sepsis, dehydration, medications etc. Can be directly due to the kidneys or post renal which is normally due to an obstruction or inability to empty the bladder.

Rarely do you go from acute kidney injury to dialysis unless not responding to other forms of management or levels of waste products getting dangerously high. However, I spend a lot of time in turkey and have known them start dialysis a lot earlier than we would in uk.

My gut feeling is that if she has diverticular disease then it would be due to dehydration or sepsis and the main treatment for this would be fluids +/- antibiotics. If she's needed support in intensive care for her blood pressure then the medication they use for this can cause kidney injury.

Until you are able to speak to her or the hospital this is all hearsay but might give you a slightly better idea of what could be going on.

As for what the operation was for this may be due to her diverticular disease as they do seem a bit operation happy out there from my experience.