Kidney Transplant - 5 Must Know Things About It!

A kidney transplant is a procedure that employs an operation to transplant properly functioning kidney in the body. The main job of the kidneys is to remove the excess waste from a person’s body with the help of a filtration process. When the kidneys stop filtering the toxins properly, they become diseased as harmful waste products and toxins begin to accumulate in the body. Following this, the patient has to go through treatment measures like dialysis or kidney transplant.

Read on to know the five things you should keep in mind about a kidney transplant:

1. Treatment: Transplant is one of the best ways to treat chronic kidney disease stage-V, until unless it is contraindicated. Life becomes near normal after transplant, though there is a possibility of rejection of transplant kidney. Patient has to take immunosuppressive medication life long. 
2. Medication: Medications are mainly for:
   1. To prevent rejection: Patient takes immunosuppressive medications life long.
   2. Prevention of infection: Patient has to take care all the measures to prevent infections as they are more prone to infections.
   3. Other medication: To control diabetes, HTN etc. 
3. Family Only: The donors are from family or emotionally related or cadavers (after brain death). HLA-matched donors are better because of less chances of rejections and first reduction of immunosuppressive. 
4. Doing Your Part: Once transplant is done - patient becomes normal and he/she lives a normal life. However, they have to take regular medications and to protect themselves from various infection. 
5. End Stage Renal Diseases: These diseases includes diabetes mellitus, HTN, polycystic kidney disease, chronic glomerulonephritis or interstitial nephritis etc.