Do you have any idea what are all the living organs can be donated? Living donors can give one of their kidneys or a part of their lung, liver, pancreas, or intestine. The kidneys look like two bean-shaped organs that originate invertebrate, and it is located on the left and right in the retroperitoneal space. Living kidney donation is the most ordinary living donation and helps save thousands of lives each year. You may feel tired and weak because your body requires clean blood to function properly. If your kidneys stop working entirely, you will need to go through dialysis or a kidney transplant.
Living organ donation and transplantation were created as a direct outcome of the critical shortage of deceased donors. Living donors do not have to be connected to their recipients. Here are some things you need to know about kidney donation and what are the causes of kidney failure.
What are Living Organ Donations?
It is a process where a healthy living person donates any of their organs for transplantation to any other person who requires the organ due to some serious medical condition. The living donor can be a family member such as a father, mother, brother, sister, etc donors are known as a living-related donation.
A donor can also be someone who is sensitively related to the recipient, such as friends, spouse, or in-law, these organ donations will be knowns as living unrelated donations.
Due to the advancement of various technologies in the medical industry, a genetic link between the donor and recipient is no longer necessary to ensure a successful organ transplant. Therefore, a living donation may even come from a stranger, such organ donations are known as an anonymous or non-directed donations.
Causes of Kidney Failure
The causes of acute kidney failure may include: Decreased urine output, although sometimes urine output remains normal. Fluid retention causes swelling in your legs, ankles, or feet and shortness of breath, fatigue, confusion, nausea, weakness, irregular heartbeat, chest pain or pressure, seizures, or coma in severe cases.
Treatments for Kidney Failure
You may know that kidneys remove waste products from your blood, and they also control the levels of salt and fluid in your body. Occasionally an illness or a disease, such as high blood pressure or diabetes, can cause the kidneys to fail. Once this happens, it is called end-stage kidney disease because the kidneys are nearing the end of their ability to work correctly.
Once the kidneys stop working, the patient must undergo treatment to remove the waste products from the blood. Numerous treatment options are available for kidney failure. The type of treatment you need will be based on the cause of your kidney failure and the stage.
Dialysis
Dialysis filters and purifies the blood using a machine, and that machine performs the function of the kidneys. You may be linked to a large machine or a portable catheter bag based on the type of dialysis. Along with dialysis, you may necessitate following a low potassium, low salt diet. Dialysis does not heal kidney failure, but it can extend your life if you go to regularly scheduled treatments.
Kidney Transplant
Another important treatment option is a kidney transplant. A kidney transplant in India can work fully so that you no longer need dialysis. There is generally a long wait to receive a well-matched donor kidney with your body. If you have a living donor, the process may exit more quickly. You must take immunosuppressant drugs once the surgery is completed to prevent your body from rejecting the new kidney. These drugs have their side effects, some of which can be severe.
The kidney transplant surgery may not be the correct treatment option for everyone. You can consult with your doctor about whether you are a good candidate for a kidney transplant.
Eligibility to Become Kidney Donor
Do you have any idea about who can be a donor? Anyone who wants to donate their kidney must be physically as well as mentally fit. As a common rule, your age must be 18 years or older, and along with this, you must also have normal kidney function. A few medical conditions can control you from being a living donor. That may comprise unrestrained high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, HIV, hepatitis, or acute infections. Having a severe mental health condition that requires treatment may also prevent you from being a donor.
Types of Living Kidney Transplants
In general, there are three types of living donor transplants available in current transplantation that are directed donation, non-directed donation, and kidney paired donation. Below listed is a brief explanation about these three donor transplants:
1. Directed Donation:
In a directed donation, living donor names the particular person to receive the kidney transplant surgery in India. This is the tone of the most common type of living donation. Particularly in a directed donation, the living donor may be:
- Parent, brother, sister, or adult child because they are the biological relative.
- a biologically unconnected person who has a personal or social relationship with the transplant candidate, such as a spouse or significant other, a friend, or a coworker
- a biologically distinct person who has heard about the transplant candidate’s need
If tests make known that the living donor would not be a good medical match, a paired donation may be an option.
2. Non-Directed or Altruistic Donation:
In a non-directed or altruistic donation, the donor donates his/her organ to anyone even a stranger. The match is set based on medical compatibility with a patient in need. Some non-directed donors decide no need to meet their recipients. In other possibilities, the donor and recipient may get together at some time, if they agree, and if the transplant centre policy permits it.
3. Kidney Paired Donation
Kidney paired donation (KPD), also known as kidney exchange, occurs when a transplant candidate has someone who wants to donate a kidney to them, but tests reveal that the kidney cannot be a good medical match. Kidney paired donation gives that transplant candidate another option: swapping living donor kidneys so that each recipient receives a compatible transplant. This swap often involves multiple living kidney donor/transplant candidate pairs.
Bottom Line:
You may know how kidneys play a prominent role in your body. The best advantage of a kidney is it has two, and even though you donate one kidney, you can live with another kidney. If you have kidney failure, you can approach a kidney transplant method.
