What does the operation involve?
Your own kidneys are not taken out when you get a transplant. The surgeon leaves them where they are unless there is a medical reason to remove them. The donated kidney is placed into your lower abdomen. The operation takes about four hours. You will be sore at first, but you should be out of bed in a day or so, and home within a week. If the kidney came from a living donor, it should start to work very quickly. A kidney from a deceased donor can take longer to start working-two to four weeks or more. In that case, you need dialysis until the kidney begins to work.
After surgery, you have to take anti-rejection medicines and also you will be taught about their side effects. Anti-rejection medicines is to stop your body from attacking or rejecting the donated kidney. Without them, your immune system would see the donated kidney as foreign, and would attack and destroy it.
Are there any risks of having a kidney transplant?
Yes.
The risks of having a kidney transplant include:
Rejection of the new kidney
Severe infection
Bleeding
Reaction to the anesthesia used for surgery
Failure of the donor kidney
The success of kidney transplant can be influenced by many different factors.
– Living donor kidney transplants are on average more successful than transplants from deceased donors.
– Most kidneys that fail in the first year after transplant do so because of rejection
– Your general health plays an important role.
Is everyone able to have a kidney transplant?
Not everyone is able to have a kidney transplant. You will not usually have a kidney transplant if you have an active infection or another life-threatening disease like cancer or significant heart or lung disease.
