Medicare's "You Can Live: Your Guide For Living With Kidney Failure"

To help stay healthy, keep your access clean and dry and keep thetube taped to your body. To help with this, taking a shower isbetter than taking a bath. A bath exposes your access to germsthat have washed off your body. Also, you should not swim inlakes, rivers, ponds, pools, or spas because of the chance of gettingan infection. If you want to swim, ask your kidney doctorabout ways to swim in the ocean or in clean, chlorinated swimmingpools.TransplantA transplant is when you get a kidney from another person. Theperson who gives you the kidney is called a donor. The donor’sblood type and tissue must match yours. The new kidney is putinto your body through surgery and is usually placed in thelower part of your belly (see diagrambelow). Your old kidney may or may notbe taken out during surgery. The new kidneydoes the work that your old kidneysdid when they were working.TransplantedKidneyCross-Section“With atransplant, youwill always needto take specialmedicines.”With a transplant, you will always need totake special medicines. Some of thesemedicines are called anti-rejection orimmunosuppressive drugs. They help yourbody accept the kidney. Early signs thatyour body may be rejecting the new kidneycan be fever, tenderness at the newkidney site, and making less urine.To have a kidney transplant, you must bediagnosed with End Stage Renal Disease(ESRD), and you may or may not havestarted dialysis.DiseasedKidneyArteryVeinDiseasedKidneyTransplantedKidneyBladder15