When I was trained to use NxStage for home hemodialysis over eight years ago, it required that I always have a trained partner with me while dialyzing. Eventually my wife was getting burned out with the six days per week dialysis.

I researched Respite Care companies and formed a partnership with Helping Hands Respite Care to provide me assistance with dialysis. They were trained by my dialysis nurse and me.

A few months ago the dialysis center offered to train me to run Solo, without any assistance. Based on how long I have been doing home dialysis, the training consisted of running dialysis one day with a nurse watching me dialyze without any assistance.

I have been dialyzing with assistance for so long, and do at times have trouble with low blood pressure, so I was somewhat reluctant to run Solo.

I started Solo by dialyzing on Saturdays with my wife present, but not assisting me. I did this for a couple of weeks and then began running by myself. I have been doing it Solo successfully for over three months.

I sill have occasional low blood pressure episodes, but I control them completely by myself by reducing the amount of water I’m taking off while dialyzing, or occasionally giving myself a saline bolus.

I love the additional freedom this method of dialysis provides by allowing me to adjust the times when I dialyze, and fitting it between my frequent doctor appointments.

I highly recommend that you become trained to run Solo, and start dialyzing this way. I spoke at a home dialysis conference recently, and Fresenius plans to dramatically increase he number of home dialysis patients running solo.