In India, most people use low flux dialyzers. Low flux dialyzers do not give good clearances of middle molecules. Over time, these middle molecules build up in the body and start causing all kinds of problems. I have been on dialysis for almost 15 years now. I better be careful about these middle molecules!

This has been bothering me for a while now. Though I knew that more frequent, longer duration dialysis is definitely better for me in many respects, I wasn't so sure if it is was good enough when it came to the clearance of the middle molecules.

I started talking about using high flux dialyzers to different people. Many people expressed a concern about the quality of water available for dialysis in India. They said you needed ultrapure water to safely use high flux dialyzers. They said there was a chance of bacteria getting into the blood from the dialysate if the water being used was not ultrapure. There was a point there. I held off for a while.

Recently however, I have been seriously looking at this again and brought this up with my nephrologist. We agreed that it was worth trying out. The worst that could happen was I could get a small reaction of shivering if bacteria did really get into the blood from the dialysate. This could be treated and we could decide to stop.

There was one more problem. The high flux dialyzer was expensive compared to the regular dialyzer I was using. At the same time, I had decided to try out single use of bloodlines as well. Together this would dent another big hole in my pocket! So, we thought we would alternate the regular F6 (low flux) dialyzer with the Hf80s (high flux) dialyzer. Its been a little more than a week of doing this. Things are going good, touch wood!

The plan is to continue this if I do not have any adverse events. The only problem is there is no way to measure if this is doing any good. But common sense and a whole lot of scientific research shows this must be helping!