Diane Bonfrisco, 61, of Fair Lawn, N.J., had already suffered through complications with her feet and legs when suddenly she experienced symptoms of dehydration, dizziness, and abdominal pain and her skin turned yellow.
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Diane has been on kidney dialysis for three and a half years now. Because her kidneys aren't functioning, she takes medicine to prevent potassium and phosphorus from building up in her blood, which could cause other health problems.
And she can only consume 32 ounces of liquid—the equivalent of four glasses of water—each day, her daughter notes. An accumulation of fluid between dialysis sessions could raise her blood pressure and make her heart work harder than it already does.
Chronic kidney disease and acute renal failure cause the kidneys to lose their ability to filter and remove waste and extra fluid from the body. Hemodialysis is a process that uses a man-made membrane (dialyzer) to:
• Rid the body of wastes, such as urea, from the blood
• Restore the proper balance of electrolytes in the blood
• Eliminate extra fluid from the body
For hemodialysis, you are connected to a filter (dialyzer) by tubes attached to your blood vessels. Your blood is slowly pumped from your body into the dialyzer, where waste products and extra fluid are removed. The filtered blood is then pumped back into your body.
A hemodialysis session usually lasts from 3 to 5 hours and must be done 3 times a week. You can read, watch television, or sleep during your dialysis sessions.
Before treatments can begin, your doctor will need to create a site where the blood can flow in and out of your body during the dialysis sessions. This is called the dialysis access. The type of dialysis access you have will depend in part on how quickly you need to begin hemodialysis.
• Rid the body of wastes, such as urea, from the blood
• Restore the proper balance of electrolytes in the blood
• Eliminate extra fluid from the body
For hemodialysis, you are connected to a filter (dialyzer) by tubes attached to your blood vessels. Your blood is slowly pumped from your body into the dialyzer, where waste products and extra fluid are removed. The filtered blood is then pumped back into your body.
A hemodialysis session usually lasts from 3 to 5 hours and must be done 3 times a week. You can read, watch television, or sleep during your dialysis sessions.
Before treatments can begin, your doctor will need to create a site where the blood can flow in and out of your body during the dialysis sessions. This is called the dialysis access. The type of dialysis access you have will depend in part on how quickly you need to begin hemodialysis.
Last Updated: November 13, 2007 
