PATIENT EDUCATION
For abdominal inflow discomfort
Teach patient causes and interventions:1
- Avoid constipation
- Rapid inflow – reduce infusion rate
- Too rapid a transition to larger dialysis fill volumes – slowly increase fill volumes
- Dialysis solution too warm or too cold – warm to body temperature
- Potential cause and interventions for PD catheter malposition
- Training for APD if on manual exchanges as trial of different modality
For abdominal discomfort during outflow
- Leave small amount of dialysate fluid in the peritoneal cavity in patients on CAPD. In APD patients, program cycler to deliver modified tidal PD (85%-90%)2, 3
- Elevating the drain bag to reduce the distance between the abdomen and drain bag can reduce the syphoning pressure that may create drain discomfort