Matters Need to be Paid Attention to after the Kidney Transplant

For the patients of renal failure who have taken the kidney transplant, the operation is not the end point for the treatment. As we all know, the kidney transplant means we need to transplant the kidney of other body into our body, so it is hard to avoid the rejection of the body, which means the immunity system reject the transplanted kidney and attract it. For some serious cases, the rejection may lead to the failure of the kidney transplant, which is rather dangerous. Therefore, there is a series of matters need to be paid attention to after the kidney transplant.

Misunderstanding of the kidney transplant

In recent years, with the development of the kidney transplant technique, there are thousands of patients of end stage of renal failure take the kidney transplant operation and then prolong their lives. For the learning of kidney transplant, there still are some misunderstandings. For example, some people think the kidney transplant is to resection the patient’s kidney then transplant the kidney of other body in the same position of the original kidney. And some patients think the kidney transplant will solve everything and they have nothing to worry about after the operation.
Indeed, kidney transplant is to transplant the donor’s kidney into the fossa iliaca in the right or life abdomen to replace one of the patient damaged kidneys. Usually, the operation doesn’t need to resect the damaged kidney of the receptor. After the kidney transplant, as the strong rejection of the immunity system to the transplanted kidney, most patients have to take the immunosuppressive agent for the whole life.

The function of immunosuppressive agent is to make the rejection to the transplanted kidney weaker. While, at the same time, the immunosuppressive agent also weakens the immunity ability, then the bacterium and infections will threaten the patients’ health due to the weaker immunity. So after the kidney transplant, the patients need to two major problems:

First, pay close attention to prevent the infection
Infections is one the most common and dangerous complications after the operation. During the three months after the operation, the immunity of the patients is the weakest due to the large amount of immunosuppressive agent. And various of bacterium, mould, virus will take advantage of the weak point. The common infections include the upper respiratory tract infection, urinary infection, pneumonia, gastroenteritis, herpes zoster and so on. Due to the poor immunity, and the patients are not sensitive to the antibiotic, so once the patients got infection, it is hard to be controlled.
In order to prevent from infection, hope the patients can pay attention to the following aspects:
1, exam the concentration of the immunosuppressive agent in the blood and then regulate the dosage of it. The large dosage will damage the immunity, while the small dosage will induce the rejection.
2, don’t got the public place where are too many people.
3, pay attention to the dietetic hygiene and avoid the stale and raw or cold food.

Second, the lifelong anti-rejection
After about half a year of various dangers, the patients may back to work and take proper business. With the decrease of the dosage of the immunosuppressive agent, the patients’ immunity will recover. At this time, the patients need to pay attention to the chronic rejection. The symptoms of chronic rejection can be reduced as “three highs and one low”: high level of creatinine, blood pressure and temperature and low level of urine volume. And there are the proteinuria, pain of the kidney and joint.
As there is no medicine can reverse the chronic rejection, the prognosis of the patients will worse once the chronic rejection started.
So it is important to make the good precaution of the chronic rejection.
1, follow the doctor’s advice strictly and don’t reduce the medicines by oneself. Reducing the medicine by oneself is the main cause for the chronic rejection.
2, avoid the over working, staying up late, catching cold, because virus and bacterial infections all can induce the chronic rejection. The patients who have taken the kidney transplant should develop the habit of taking a nap, which can guarantee of the blood supply of the kidney.
3, avoid the medicines that are harm for the kidney, such as gentamicin, kanamycin, neomycin and so on. And patients had better not inoculate the virus vaccine adjuvant.
4, be a good nurse for yourself. Observe the weight, blood pressure, urine volume regularly.

Indeed, kidney transplant is a complex and dangerous operation. If the patients still have other chance or opportunity, they should avoid the kidney transplant. This should be the last choice for the patients.