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Managing Anxiety as a Transplant Patient in a COVID-19 World

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Transplant recipients never needed a COVID-19 pandemic to be anxious about infections.

Long before the pandemic, living with a transplanted organ had its own caution, stress, and anxiety about illness.

Throw social isolation into the mix and your anxiety is only made worse.

Social Distancing’s Impact on Transplant Recipients Mental Health

Isabel Stenzel Byrnes has lived 16 years with a double-lung transplant. Byrnes is a licensed social worker and grief counselor from California who says she started to feel the effects of social isolation about two months into the pandemic.

“I was starting to really find myself in a slump, and missing the energy shared with human beings,” said Byrnes, who copes by taking socially distanced walks with people.

One positive aspect of life during COVID-19 is that today we have computers, tablets, and Smartphones, which can be useful resources to visually and auditorily connect transplant recipients with their doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, social workers, colleagues, and friends.

Read the full article, here.

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The Most Important Topics to Talk to Your Kidney Doctor About After a Transplant

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You have been given the gift of a kidney donation.

You have energy and strength that you haven’t had in a while.

You have a new lease on life, and it’s a new day.

Now what?

Be Sure to Ask Your Transplant Doctor About These Important Topics

Now that you have had a kidney transplant, you are going to want to lead your healthiest life so you can protect your gift.

Read the full article, here.

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Getting Important Blood Draws from Home—All Your Questions Answered About RemoTraC™ 

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Before COVID-19, most kidney- and heart-transplant recipients got their weekly or monthly blood tests at the hospital or a local blood-draw center. When COVID-19 touched down, however, hospitals became places where exposure to the coronavirus was higher.

Patients who are on immunosuppression—such as transplant recipients—are likely to be at a higher risk of severe infection and associated complications of COVID-19.1 Therefore, it is critical that transplant recipients have routine access to their transplant-lab testing in environments that limit their exposure to the coronavirus.

How do you solve such a dilemma?

Since March 2020, over 5,000 transplant recipients have turned to RemoTraC.

Learn more about RemoTraC, here.

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Tips for Controlling Your Blood Pressure if You Live with a Transplant

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Part of the function of the kidney is to help you regulate blood pressure.

High blood pressure—known as hypertension—can be common both before and after a kidney or heart transplant.

Between 50 and 80% of adults—and 47 to 82% of kids—living with a transplanted kidney have high blood-pressure levels.1  Culprits that stimulate elevations in blood-pressure level include:

  • Anti-rejection drugs
  • Obesity
  • Salt intake
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol consumption2

Read the full article, here.

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What Are the Benefits of Transplant Recipients Doing Home Blood Draws?

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We have been living in a COVID-19 world for close to a year now, and the pandemic has changed society’s routines and forced it to delay—or go without—many things.

As a transplant recipient, however, you know that you cannot delay—or go without—certain things, especially those related to your care.

Routine check-ups with your transplant team can help detect transplant complications.

Labs are also incredibly important for transplant recipients like yourself because they asses the ongoing health of your transplanted kidney or heart. If you are a kidney-transplant recipient, important regular labs that you may need include:

  • AlloSure® or KidneyCare
  • Complete Blood Count
  • Anti-rejection-med levels (eg., Tacrolimus, Sirolimus, Cyclosporin, Everolimus)
  • Urinary Protein/Creatinine Ratio
  • Complete Metabolic Profile + Mg + Phos
  • Viral PCR (BK/CMV/EBV)
  • Urinary Protein / Creatinine Ratio

If you are a heart-transplant recipient, important regular labs that you may need include:

  • AlloSure or HeartCare
  • Complete Blood Count
  • Anti-rejection med levels (eg., Tacrolimus, Sirolimus, Cyclosporin, Everolimus)
  • Comprehensive Metabolic Panel + Mg + Phos
  • Viral PCR (BK/CMV/EBV)

Read the full article, here.

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How a Liquid Biopsy Helps Your Transplanted Kidney or Heart?

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Every buzzword has its beginning.

In early 2020, few had heard of “Social Distancing.” By March, however, “Social Distancing” had become part of the universal lexicon.

In the transplant community, it’s just a matter of time until “Liquid Biopsy” becomes the latest buzzword.

What is a Liquid Biopsy?

The liquid biopsy uses fragments from the blood to give information that is usually found from taking a solid biopsy. The science has been widely used in cancer diagnosis and management, replacing invasive sampling with a non-invasive blood test.

As cells undergo changes, injury, or natural death, their DNA fragments are released into the blood stream. These fragments are known as cell-free DNA (cfDNA),1 and they provide a continuous stream of information. In the case of cancer cells, a liquid biopsy is detecting the cfDNA coming from the tumor.

Read the full article, here.

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Does Timing Matter When Taking Anti-Rejection Medications for Your Transplanted Kidney or Heart?

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Having an organ transplant can feel like a new lease on life!

You find that you can suddenly do more of the things that you enjoy. However, new recipients are sometimes overwhelmed with all the requirements of post-transplant living.

Protecting your new gift requires some discipline and consistency. As a new transplant recipient, you become keenly aware of things like:

  • Water-intake levels
  • Urine-output measurements
  • Changes in weight
  • Blood-pressure levels
  • Blood-sugar levels

To maintain the health of your transplanted organ, it is important that you take your immunosuppressant (anti-rejection) medications, but also at the same times each day.

Anti-rejection medications help to tame your body’s ability to attack and potentially damage your transplanted organ. To accomplish this, however, anti-rejection medications need to be taken:

  • Every day
  • At the same times

Read the full article, here.

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Kidneys in the Kitchen: Cultural Foods

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“This month’s episode focuses on how to adapt your culturally favorite foods into a kidney friendly diet. Registered Dietitian, Renee Fung, RD, CSR, LDN, discusses how she works with her patients to keep their favorite foods in the renal diet.”

Read the full recipe and watch the video by National Kidney Foundation of Illinois, here.

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Spatial Designer Anthony Bright Launches VR Experience to Find Kidney Donors

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“Atlanta-based digital and virtual designer, Anthony Bright, just launched a virtual reality experience called “A Bright Future.” With this immersive project, Bright aims to find suitable transplant candidates after he was diagnosed with kidney disease back in November 2019. The multimedia effort also acts as a precedent for future recipients who are looking for potential donors.”

Read the full article, here.

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Study examines social determinants of disparities in kidney transplantation

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“Among US adults with kidney failure, race and social determinants of health were associated with patients’ likelihood of receiving a kidney transplant. The findings come from an analysis that will appear in an upcoming issue of CJASN.

Blacks are more likely than whites to develop kidney failure, but they’re less likely to undergo kidney transplantation, the optimal treatment for kidney failure. Blacks also have disproportionately lower rates of kidney transplants from living donors, which offer superior patient and transplant survival rates compared with deceased-donor kidney transplants.”

Read the full article, here.

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