Good Diet in Dialysis: 4 Important Ingredients to Monitor

2014-11-13 03:16

Dialysis is a replacement treatment for kidney failure patients when their kidneys lost most of their functions. For dialysis patients, they also need to pay attention to their daily diet, and a well planed diet will be good for their illness condition. Here are the 4 important ingredients to monitor.

If patients are on dialysis, their dietary restriction may be rather minimal, but patients also need to make sure not to eat unhealthy. And a dialysis diet should stress on eating good and healthy food at regular small intervals. Then what are the 4 important ingredients to monitor?

1. Potassium

Potassium is an vital mineral for the normal function of nerves. However, for dialysis patients, their kidneys have been damaged very severely, so they may suffer from high potassium level in blood. And the high potassium will cause irregular heartbeat, heart failure or even sudden death. So dialysis patients need to limit the intake of potassium in their daily diet.

2. Sodium

Sodium is also an important electrolyte in body, but dialysis patients need to limit the sodium intake. Because the damaged kidneys fail to excrete excess sodium out, which will cause some side effects in body, such as increased blood pressure, edema, shortness of breath, heart failure, etc. All these can be life-threatening for dialysis patients.

3. Phosphorus

Phosphorus is another vital mineral in blood, which can help store energy in body, and phosphorus along with calcium can help strengthen bones and teeth. For dialysis patients, they may suffer from high phosphorus level and low calcium level in blood due to the severe damage, so they need to limit the phosphorus intake in daily diet.

4. Fluids

Reducing fluid intake is the biggest ordeal for dialysis patients. When the kidneys fail to work well, they will fail to remove the excess fluid out, and this can cause edema and breathlessness (fluid retention in lungs), which will make bad effects on patients. So patients need to limit their fluid intake strictly. They need to follow the advice of their doctor to take proper amount of fluid everyday.

Above are the diet suggestions for dialysis patients, and we hope this will be helpful for their illness condition. If you still have any questions after reading, you can consult the online doctor, or you can also send e-mail to pkdtreatment169@gmail.com.

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