Kidney Function and Necessity for Dialysis
📌 Healthy kidneys filter waste, excess fluid, and electrolytes like potassium and sodium, exiting the body as urine.
💧 Kidney disease causes a gradual loss of function, leading to the buildup of harmful wastes and excess fluid, potentially causing increased blood pressure and bone or blood issues.
🚨 Dialysis is recommended when kidneys fail to function properly, or to treat acute kidney failure or remove drugs/poisons from the body.

Hemodialysis Procedure
💉 Hemodialysis uses a machine called a dialyzer to clean the blood outside the body.
🛠️ A vascular access site (arteriovenous graft or fistula) must be created weeks or months before treatment begins to access the bloodstream.
🩸 During treatment, blood flows out, encounters filtering fibers and dialysate (cleaning solution) inside the dialyzer, and clean blood returns via a second needle.

Peritoneal Dialysis Procedure
🧼 Peritoneal dialysis cleans blood using the peritoneum, the membrane lining the abdomen, without removing blood from the body.
🩺 A soft tube called a catheter is surgically implanted near the belly button to allow dialysate in and out of the abdomen.
🔁 Each session, called an exchange, involves filling the abdomen with dialysate; waste and extra fluid diffuse from the blood into the dialysate across the peritoneal membrane, which is then drained into a collection bag.

Key Points & Insights
➡️ Kidney failure leads to the accumulation of wastes, necessitating procedures like dialysis to maintain homeostasis.
➡️ Hemodialysis requires establishing durable vascular access, such as an arteriovenous fistula, for effective blood flow access.
➡️ Peritoneal dialysis utilizes the body’s natural peritoneal membrane as the filter, managed through scheduled exchanges using a permanent abdominal catheter.

📸 Video summarized with SummaryTube.com on Nov 12, 2025, 10:51 UTC