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Home dialysis

Yes, it is possible to dialyse at home! Home dialysis offers a lot of advantages:

  • Dialyse at your own convenience
  • No need to adhere to center schedules and timings
  • Be completely independent
  • Get better dialysis

There are two ways you can dialyse at home:

  • Peritoneal dialysis
  • Home hemodialysis

Peritoneal dialysis is almost always done at home. You can find out more about Peritoneal dialysis here.

Hemodialysis can be done at home too! You will need to make an initial investment however. You will need the following:

  • Hemodialysis machine
  • Reverse Osmosis based water treatment plant
  • Additional electrical wiring and plumbing

To start with, you will also need to have a technician who comes home to help you do the treatment. Gradually, however, you can learn the ropes and eventually do everything on your own or with the help of a partner who can be your spouse, a parent, a sibling etc.

Unfortunately, home hemodialysis has not caught on too much in India and there are only a handful of people doing hemodialysis at home. There is no training available yet for this. However, it is definitely possible and offers a lot of benefits over dialysing at a hospital or a center.

One major benefit of dialysing at home is that you can dialyse more frequently with ease. Research shows that hemodialysis, when done more frequently, over longer durations and more gently (at low pump speeds and ultrafiltration rates) is much better for the body overall in terms of both short term and long term outcomes.

It is hardly practical to go to a hospital or center every day of the week for long hours. This is much easier when done at home. So, this kind of 'optimal dialysis' is much more doable if you dialyse at home.

It is extremely important however, to get your doctor's buy-in before switching to home hemo. This modality, though closest to ideal, may not be suited to you. Talk to your nephrologist about this and get his/her consent before you consider switching.

You can find more information about the cost of home dialysis in our Cost Comparison page.

The author of this site is on home hemodialysis. He dialyses seven nights a week, seven to eight hours each night in the India city of Hyderabad. You can visit his blog for more details.

You can visit Home Dialysis Central for more details about home dialysis. This is an American site however and not all the information may be applicable to the Indian scenario.

All the best!