Kidney Matters - Issue 12 Spring 2021
Kidney Matters is our free quarterly magazine for everyone affected by kidney disease. This issue includes a tribute to Kidney Care UK Chair of Trustees Professor Donal O'Donoghue who passed away due to covid-19 at the start of the year. There's also a feature on sex and relationships, how your views helped shape covid-19 national policy, medical articles on anaemia and simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation, and a feature interview with a transplant recipient on some of the social stigmas often faced by people with chronic health conditions within the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community. As well as this, we'll be looking back at two years of the Kidney Kitchen as we cook up a tasty tandoori with guest chef and RNG dietitian, Gabby Ramlan.
Kidney Matters is our free quarterly magazine for everyone affected by kidney disease.
This issue includes a tribute to Kidney Care UK Chair of Trustees Professor Donal O'Donoghue who passed away due to covid-19 at the start of the year. There's also a feature on sex and relationships, how your views helped shape covid-19 national policy, medical articles on anaemia and simultaneous pancreas and kidney transplantation, and a feature interview with a transplant recipient on some of the social stigmas often faced by people with chronic health conditions within the Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) community.
As well as this, we'll be looking back at two years of the Kidney Kitchen as we cook up a tasty tandoori with guest chef and RNG dietitian, Gabby Ramlan.
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C O N T I N U E D
Sometimes the infusion temporarily increases heart
rate and blood pressure, but reducing the speed of the
infusion can correct this. Occasionally delayed effects
with muscle aches and joint pains can occur up to four
days after the infusion; these settle on their own.
Sunil adds: “Very rarely, an iron infusion may cause
an anaphylactic reaction. With modern irons, this
risk is very low and certainly not as high as it is with,
say, penicillin, but we still need to be vigilant and
monitor patients carefully when they receive their iron
infusion. This is why you are observed for 30 minutes
after the infusion.”
Guidelines used to advise giving intravenous iron
reactively when iron levels became too low. However,
the randomised controlled PIVOTAL trial shows that
in HD patients, compared with reactive treatment,
proactive infusions to increase iron levels result in a
lower risk of death, hospitalisation for heart failure
and other major cardiovascular events. Proactive
“Anaemia develops
slowly, so kidney patients
adapt and may not realise
how ill they felt before
their anaemia is treated”
treatment also reduces the dose of ESA and the need
for blood transfusions.
“In response to PIVOTAL, the Renal Association
recently updated its anaemia guidelines, and revised
guidelines are likely from NICE (National Institute
for Health and Care Excellence). However, few units
appear to have changed
practice even though 50
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