Delayed kidney function post transplant

[live2learn]

Hi everyone,

My husband was recently lucky enough to get a kidney/pancreas transplant after about 6 years of waiting. He had the surgery on July 27th, and so far, while the pancreas is working beautifully, the kidney is not.

They have run a battery of tests and there are no signs of rejection whatsoever, but yet, he is still barely urinating, and due to low blood pressure, they have only been able to do small amounts of dialysis to keep his fluids down.

Anyone who has gone through a transplant, or is close to someone who has - have you had this problem with delayed function after transplant? How long did it take for the kidney to start fully functioning? I know it's only been 2 weeks, and this is probably not unusual, but it still worries me.

Thank you.

[jimw]

Re: Delayed kidney function post transplant

Hello Live2learn,
Congratulations on your husband's transplants! I also had a kidney and pancreas transplant April 7th. Fortunately both organs started working for me right away, but I know it is not unusual for the transplanted kidney to be "sleepy". I was told before the surgery that it is not uncommon for a kidney to take 4-6 weeks to start working. The girl that received the other kidney from my donor had a delay of about 5 weeks before her kidney started working, but now it is working great. So while there are no guarantees, there is certainly reason to be optimistic. I'm sure the transplant team will continue to monitor him closely. My prayers are with you that it will be working soon. Keep us updated.
Jim

[angieskidney]

Re: Delayed kidney function post transplant

Hi everyone,

My husband was recently lucky enough to get a kidney/pancreas transplant after about 6 years of waiting. He had the surgery on July 27th, and so far, while the pancreas is working beautifully, the kidney is not.

They have run a battery of tests and there are no signs of rejection whatsoever, but yet, he is still barely urinating, and due to low blood pressure, they have only been able to do small amounts of dialysis to keep his fluids down.

Anyone who has gone through a transplant, or is close to someone who has - have you had this problem with delayed function after transplant? How long did it take for the kidney to start fully functioning? I know it's only been 2 weeks, and this is probably not unusual, but it still worries me.

Thank you.

I had the exact same thing. The slow start due to low blood pressure. This is called (in my case of my Kidney Transplant) ATN or Acute Tubular Necrosis. The hospital did not explain it very well and I had to look it up o the net. I am just so glad that my transplant hospital had a computer with net access or I would have been in the dark and freaking out.

I was able to find out that with ATN the kidney would eventually start working by 6 weeks. The transplant team did know this but didn't tell me. At the end of 6 weeks when my kidney still was not working they came up to me and apologized saying it is not working and that I had to continue hemo dialysis. I agreed that I needed hemo dialysis (they didn't want to give me it at first but with 22 lbs of fluid on me I demanded it) but told them not to give up on the kidney before I have.

My kidney started by the 7th week. I had my transplant Sept 30th 2007 and was finally able to stop dialysis on November 14th 2007.

I will be celebrating my 2 year anniversary very soon! My Creatinine is still in the higher range (GFR = 30) but they say as long as it is stable and not rejecting then it is fine. I can stay off dialysis)!

Live2Learn, how are things going now? Sorry I didn't see this post until now. I have been away busy on my own site.