Alcohol and Kidney Donation

[Jessiebooth]

For those who have donated a kidney, do you still drink alcohol? How often? What were your doctor's recommendations regarding alcohol consumption?

[kdub]

Hi Jessie,

My understanding is that it is OK to drink alcohol, but you should not drink excessively.  I think the reasoning for this is that alcohol is processed by the liver, but if you overwhelm your liver it is then processed by your kidney (someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Before donation I basically drank 1 to 5 drinks every evening.   Right before donation, I switched to only drinking when my wife and I went out, or when we had company over.  So, now I generally drink 1 to 2 drinks twice/week.

One thing I will tell you is I'm much more susceptible to hang-overs.  Not sure why this is.

_kdub

[ashlee1313]

I'm eight weeks out and I haven't attempted it yet; I'm not sure when I plan to, either.  I did have a sip of a hard cider shortly after my donation and I had some pain in the area my kidney used to be for the rest of the day.  I'm not sure that it's related, but it has made me a bit scared to have a drink now.

From what I understand it shouldn't be an issue.  They did advise me that drinking heavily could be a problem.

[Fr Pat]

     Some donors have reported that the same amount of alcohol affected them more strongly than before, especially in the first months after donation. So it would be wise for donors to be careful after donation until they see if this is true in their case.
    Fr. Pat