Dialysis hypotension is commonly seen during hemodialysis which is the common treatment for the kidney failure. The blood pressure becomes very low when the body fluids are removed during hemodialysis.
Dialysis induced hypotension is mainly caused by the excessive ultra filtration with insufficient amount of vascular refilling. Most of the patient who undergoes hemodialysis suffers from cramps at the end of the treatment, the time when the large amount of fluid has been removed.
The dialysis induced hypotension are caused by many different reasons and this hypotension can also be seen as symptoms in many critical ailments like myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmias, pericardial tamponade, sepsis, air embolism. The other causes include suboptimal cardiac function, autonomic neuropathy, and the dialysate sodium concentration also documented to cause the dialysis induced hypotension.
If hypotension persists during dialysis, it is better to better to withdraw the dialysis immediately and to make the patient to stay in a comfortable position so as to increase the cardiac filling which mainly helps to increase the blood pressure. Food ingestion is also must be avoided before and during hemodialysis to prevent hypotension. Membranes used in the hemodialysis are also found to induce hypotension. Hence, if the hypotension is caused by the membranes, then switching to other type of membranes are preferred. |