Living Donors Online Message Board

Living Donation Discussion and News => Living Donation Forum => Topic started by: jhonyguy04 on October 20, 2019, 09:16:07 PM

Title: Frustrated
Post by: jhonyguy04 on October 20, 2019, 09:16:07 PM
Hello I am new here. Just needed to vent out somewhere about my frustration. My husband has recently progressed to stage 4 CKD and I never had second thoughts about donating my kidney to save him. He didn’t ask I said of course I would do it. I was excited for my evaluation and they told me I have to lose weight and it turns out I have hypertension. I started eating better and lost 10 lbs, but now my weight list has platued. And they told me because I am 33 my hypertension has to be cured. And I am trying my best to cure it with diet and exercise. But I am so depressed about this. I wanted to be ready for my husband to avoid dialysis on him.
Title: Re: Frustrated
Post by: Fr Pat on October 20, 2019, 11:39:36 PM
     it seems that kidney donors have a higher-than-average risk of developing high blood pressure in the years following donation. So the hospital has to be sure that your blood pressure is good beforehand, or otherwise donation might be too risky for you. They wamt to be as confident as possible that both the donor and the recipient will have good long-term health afterwards.
Title: Re: Frustrated
Post by: Fr Pat on October 21, 2019, 03:36:45 AM
By the way, these days more people check in at the FaceBook page of Living Donors on Line, and also Living Kidney Donors Support Group on FaceBook. If you would like to post there as well you would probably get more responses and experiences.
Title: Re: Frustrated
Post by: Orchidlady on October 21, 2019, 03:03:37 PM
I had a similar situation in that I wanted to donate to my husband but I was too heavy. They did part of the testing, but would not do the balance of it until I lost weight. It took me nine months to lose all the weight I needed to lose to be acceptable. I had to start eating better, watched portion sizes and joined a gym for the first time in my life. My blood pressure was not bad, but it did improve with the weight loss as did other numbers.
As Fr Pat has said, you are still relatively young and they don't want the donation to give you major problems on into the future. And actually, high blood pressure is the second leading cause of kidney failure.
You may want to talk with your own physician to see what they say about the blood pressure and weight loss as they may be able to provide some guidance and help.
Title: Re: Frustrated
Post by: 1KidneysEnuff on October 22, 2019, 01:04:17 PM
Good luck with working on your own health. In the meantime, you and your husband can try to find another living donor. It's becoming more and more common to look online with social media campaigns. I first learned about the need for a kidney donor from an appeal the patient's wife made in an online prayer group. But they had swamped their neighborhood with yard signs, car magnets, etc. in addition to the persistent outreach online.