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After-Care for Transplant Patients

Kidney location after transplantation.

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After someone has had a transplant, there are a lot of issues that still have to be faced. Anti-rejection drugs are generally a lifelong requirement, and the risk of rejection is always there. In addition, there are often treatments, therapies, doctors’ visits, and other requirements that have to be met. Sometimes a person has to adjust his diet and/or level of activity, and the recovery period can be long. After-care is vital, and it’s not something that can be ignored. Just because you feel better doesn’t mean you don’t need the medication or treatments that you’re supposed to have. Don’t ignore them or try to avoid what you should be doing to keep yourself healthy.

If you’re having trouble with your after-care – either maintaining it or paying for it – there are organizations that can help you. Don’t assume that you’re all on your own, even if you don’t have family around you. You can get the help that you need in order to improve your health. Asking about these kinds of issues while you’re still in the hospital is usually best, because you can have some things arranged for you before you get out. If you’re already done with your transplant and have been released, though, you can still get help if you see that you’re being overwhelmed.

It’s very important that you take matters into your own hands and ask about after-care. Find out what you need to know about caring for yourself, and get the help that you need with the things you can’t do. Even if you have a caregiver, like a spouse or adult child, it can still be overwhelming when you come home post-transplant. Naturally, some types of transplants are more significant than others, depending on the organ replaced, but all transplant patients should be diligent about their after-care.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Transplant Patients are Living Longer

Human Body
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Anyone who needs an organ transplant is likely concerned about quality of life after the transplant – as well as the length of life. Not everyone who has a transplant fairs well, but there are new advances being made all the time. More transplant patients are living much longer than they did in the past, regardless of what kind of transplant they’ve had. Advances in medicine have been able to help people get through serious medical procedures like transplants, and doctors are learning more about them each day. Because medicine has been able to continue to move forward, the failure of an organ over time is no longer a death sentence for every person who experiences it.

If you need an organ transplant, you’ll want to find the right doctor, too. All doctors who do transplants are trained to do so, but some have had more experience with your kind of transplant and specific medical issues than others have. That’s important to remember, because the doctor who’s right for someone else might not be the one who’s right for you. Take the time to get to know your doctor a little bit. If you aren’t sure he’s the right one for the transplant, seek a second opinion.

Obviously, some transplants are critical and you won’t have time to look around at different doctors. For most cases, though, the person knows that the need for a transplant is coming. That gives the patient time to decide on the best course of action, the doctor he feels most comfortable with, and other factors. You don’t have to settle when it comes to your health, and you should make sure that you feel good about the upcoming surgery and the doctor who will be performing it. Being an informed patient can be a great choice for anyone needing a transplant.

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Proper Medication is Very Important

Tablets and Patches of Clonidine, Comprimés et...
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If you have to take medication, you know that it’s very important to take the correct dosages at the right times. Most people are aware of that, but some of them still aren’t able to make it happen. That’s often because of financial struggles, but it can also be because of memory problems, fear of taking the medications, adverse side effects, or other issues. If you need help with the medications you are or should be taking, there are medication programs that can help you. That’s true whether you need lower-cost options, or you need someone to be sure that you’re taking what you’re supposed to be taking.

Some people who need medication end up very sick because they accidentally take too much or take the wrong medication. People have even died from that, so it’s vital that you’re careful with your medications. With the financial problems that a lot of people are experiencing in a tight economy, the choice between buying food or buying the medications they need is often made. Generally, they buy food because they can’t live without it and have to take care of their families. They may end up not filling their prescription at all, or they may take their medications in smaller doses or inconsistently in an effort to make them last.

Medication programs can help people who don’t have a lot of money, but even if you can afford your medications you can still get help with remembering to take them. Don’t be shy about asking for help. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s much braver to ask for help than it is to struggle on, alone, because you don’t want to admit that you’re having some trouble. No matter what your medication issue, look for medication programs in your area, so you can have peace of mind.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Uniform Anatomical Gift Act

Uniform Anatomical Gift Act was passed by the United States in 1968 to harmonize the various practices related to the increasing organ transplantations. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act makes sure that the donations of organs are followed in an ethical manner. It is specially drafted for the purpose of different kinds of transplantation and still holds valid till this day. Thou some modifications and additions have been made, this is still the basic law that it was in 1968. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act along with the National Organ Transplant Act passed in 1984 are the only two laws that govern organ transplantation.
The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act covers even the donation of bodies to medical institutions and to hospitals to use the body parts to teach students and to help other patients with them. This law also gives the right to the next of kin to decide the fate of the dead relative in the absence of a deed or a document. It also reduces the right over a deceased by the health care providers who used to take out organs without the permission of the relatives or the deceased person herself. It makes such kind of practices by the hospitals illegal in all the states of America. The law was modified further along the way to make the process of anatomical gifting much simpler and easier. A legal document was made necessary for anatomical organ gifting along with the presence of witnesses and a testamentary. Looking at the number of people dying in road accidents, this law made the practice of including the person’s request of gifting her orphans to be notated on the driver’s license. If you or your kin are thinking of donating organs to someone or an institute, this is a very important act to know about.

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National Organ Transplant Act

The National Organ Transplant Act was passed in 1984 to solve the increasingly complex problems associated with organ transplantation. The Uniform Anatomical Gift Act of 1969 was not capable of handling the increasing number of donations and health institutions. Hence this act was released in 1984 to cover the lop holes and handle various other issues related to transplantation. It was the first act that structured the process of organ transplantation and had its roots in the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act. Various policies regarding patients, donors, hospitals and other organizations were made. It also made specific policies for high transferred organs such as liver, kidney and other commonly transferred organs.

This act made a new establishment that was authorized with the power to handle all donations and donors. The Task Force on Organ Transplantation also was given the responsibility of establishing, planning and operating the organizations. It was also meant to train organizations so that they can handle procedures of organ transplantation and handling. An Organ Procurement and Transplantation network was also set up under this act to make easier the distribution of organs so that no organs go waste or no patient waits for too long for an organ that she dies. For this a computerized scientific registry was setup that eased the process of handling and maintenance of organ registries. It also handles funds for allocation to institutions that specialize in procurement of organs. It has successfully reduced the number of deaths because of people waiting a long time for an organ. Hence this act was quite successful in modernizing the process of organ transplantation. It also recognized the need for a professional way of dealing with kidney transplantations which are legalized under certain conditions and payments to the donor. Know this act as best as you can if you require an organ or plan to donate one.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Organs From Prisoners

There are more than a million peoples on waiting lists for organs for transplantation. Only a fraction of the needs of these prisoners are met by number of organs that make their way to procurement organization. The increasing reluctance of people to donate organs for the needy is making this process much more harder. If even half of the people who die every day, agree on donating their organs, the number of people on waiting lists will become very less. Since this is not going to happen in the near future, one alternative is looked at as a potential source of organs. Prisoners on death row can be used to obtain organs. There are a few hundred prisoners who are executed every day, at least a fraction of the requirement can be met by harvesting these prisoners for their organs and giving them to people who deserve to live.

Currently it is illegal to harvest organs from prisoners without their written consent. Since the prisoners are criminals of the society, they belong to the society. Their bodies after death are owned by the government and it can pass regulations to procure organs from these. In united Stated a number of federal acts make it illegal to procure organs from prisoners. One of this is the National Transplant Act that was passed in 1984 that makes the donation of any organs or tissues regulatory and prohibited. Many requests by subsequent law makers to push prisoners to agree to donate organs have never made it out of draft stage, wasting thousands of organs that could have saved many lives. Since the buying and selling of organs in illegal in united states, any law that asks inmates to donate their organs for special privileges is going against the law. The only place where obtaining organs from prisoners is legal is in China.

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Filed Under: Medication Programs, Organ Donors, Organ Transplant Tagged With: , ,

Lab Grown Organ

Macrophages have identified a cancer cell (the...
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Almost every patient on the waiting list of an organ transplantation wait list wishes that there was a supermarket where they could go easily and get organs from off the shelf that fits their needs. This wish of theirs might be closer to reality that thought. Researchers are learning to grow fresh organs in labs using a stream of life science known as tissue engineering. Scientists have managed to grow organ’s that meet the specific need of patients and have much lower chance of rejection than other donated organs.

The transplanted organs have a high rate of rejection by the body’s own immune system. To suppress the immune system, toxic drugs are used that quiet down the immune system and help in acceptance of the organ by the body. But even then, there are high chances of the organ being rejected by the body. Also the problem with transplanted organs is that they will have diseases and pathogens that the donator might have accumulated over his lifetime. If these diseases are very dangerous, the patient with the transplant has the same amount of chance of getting the disease as the donor had. Hence these transplants are in no way safe.

Tissue engineering is a fast growing science where organs are grown from the stem cells of the patient and grow an organ literally from a single cell. One such company is Tengion. This company has successfully created a Neo Bladder in a laboratory. This in vitro bladder is in its phase two testing stage and is making its way to the people who are in need of these. The results so far of the transplantation have been very promising and have been able to prove that lab grown organs are much more safer and have more acceptability by the body.

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Bone Marrow Transplantation

A bone marrow harvest.
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Blood cancer or Leukemia is a disease of the bone marrow where the blood producing cells known as hematopoietic stem cells create bad blood cells that are abnormal and cancerous. These spread to other parts of the body, therefore spreading cancer to other parts of the body. In chemotherapy, these bone marrow cells are destroyed to stop the bone marrow from producing these abnormal can carcinogenic cells. It is very important that these bone marrow cells be replaced by a donation from a matching donor. If not then a the cancer patient does not have much time to survive.

Bone marrow has a number of different cells that specialize in different functions of the body. The most important of these is the stem cells, which produce the blood in the body. It is a very important part of the body since white bloods are necessary for the body to fight with pathogens. These which blood cells can be only obtained from a donors bone marrow or from hematopoietic stem cell transfusion. A donor has to match the particular blood type of the individual and also all the other specifications so that there is no rejection by the body. A donation can be made in two ways. On is a nonsurgical method in which drugs are provided which will make the bone marrow to secrete out the Hematopoietic stem cells. These can be obtained by a simple blood donation. The second method is the surgical process were the bone marrow is removed by drilling a little hole in the bone from the hip or the breast bone. Anesthesia is provided while the surgery goes on but later there is a slight pain at the site of operation which goes off soon. There is no effect in anyway on the donor and the bone marrow regenerates.

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Transplant Tourism

You must have heard about medical tourism where people travel to exotic locations around the world to get treated to almost all of the diseases and get surgeries. This is a rapidly increasing sector where countries with low cost medical care are reaping the benefits. Developing countries such as India, China, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Brazil, etc. are the ones which are at the top of the list of countries that are attracting customers from places like United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand where the cost of a dental surgery could get you a sports car. Now people are going to these same places to get organs transplantation done at much lower cost and where organs are widely available, also visit to the place is thrown in free. Instead in these medical tourism destinations, a surgery along with tickets plus a holiday is much lesser that a surgery at home.
Most of the developing countries where medical tourism is increasingly getting popular are also places of rampant organ trade. The long waiting periods in United States which can last from a couple of months to even years, has been pushing them to go to these countries and get the surgery done. Developed countries do not have as many organ donors as the number of people on the transplantation list. Hence it is a matter of life or death for a few people who reach for illegally obtained organs to live. Most of these countries have rampant poverty and bad government hospitals where poor people are snatched of their organs in the disguise of simple surgeries and sometimes even killed to obtain organs. A recent study done by the United Nations found that there are rampant unethical organ trafficking going on in the places where medical tourism is booming.

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Graft Versus Host Disease

Two megakaryoctes are visible in this slide of...

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Bone marrow transplantation procedure sometimes causes graft versus host disease (GVHD) in the recipients. Graft versus host disease can be acute or chronic. Many of the cases are life threatening.
The bone marrow transplant is a important procedure, and has the potential to cure certain cancers affecting the bone marrow, leukemia etc. It is a specialized procedure conducted in specialized hospitals. In this process, the bone marrow of the host is destroyed by using radiations or chemotherapy and then it is replaced by the bone marrow from a donor. Mostly it involves transplantation of genetically matched marrow, where most of the times a close family member will be the donor, and at times people outside the family are also found to be a match. Sometimes a person is transplanted with his/ her own marrow after it has been purged of malignant cells and this procedure is known as autologus transplants. The recipient of the bone marrow transplant is put on immunosuppressive drugs in order to prevent the immune system from destroying the transplant.
Skin rashes, diarrhea, abnormal liver function etc are the symptoms of acute GVHD, they symptoms usually occur within 1-2 months of transplantation. Under chronic GVHD along with the symptoms of acute GVHD, dermatitis, dry mouth and eyes, gastrointestinal and lung disorders show up as symptoms 3 – 4 months after the transplant.
GVHD is treated by using immunosuppressive drugs, high dosage of corticosteroids, antibodies to T_cells etc. GVHD may cause severe damage to the liver, gastrointestinal tract and lungs of the patient. The person may be susceptible to various infections due to the suppression of the immune system by immune suppressive drugs. People undergone bone marrow grafts are monitored closely and it is advisable that if any of the symptoms occur, they should immediately consult the healthcare provider.

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