2024-11-20 Facebook Live - Kidney Q&A

FB Live – November 20th: DPC Education Center’s Healthcare Consultant, Velma Scantlebury, MD, Live on Facebook to answer your kidney related questions. We have officially entered into the holiday season, which means lots of gatherings with friends and family and lots of holiday foods. Dr. Scantlebury talks about the importance of being up to date on your vaccines, washing your hands, and even wearing a mask to keep yourself protected from illnesses, as well as watching your sodium and phosphorous intake. She also discusses why O positive blood types are the most difficult to transplant, post-transplant surveillance, and many other kidney-related topics. 

With the holiday season comes lots of indoor gatherings with friends and family. One of the best ways to protect your health during this time is to make sure that you are up to date with all vaccines recommended by your doctor. Washing your hands often is also a great way to protect your health, and even consider wearing a mask while indoors to help keep yourself and those around you protected. When it comes to food this time of year, we usually end up straying from our normal diets due to parties and gatherings. While it’s still okay to have some of the richer holiday foods in moderation, it’s important to still monitor your phosphorus and sodium intake, especially if you dialyze in center and might be missing a treatment due to holiday related closures. As always, your healthcare team is a great resource for helping you come up with a plan to stay healthy while also enjoying the holidays with your loved ones. 

Dr. Scantlebury also answers a patient question about why O positive patients are difficult to transplant. When looking at blood types, O positive is the most common, and can also give to A, B or O positive patients, but can only receive O positive. So when you think about those listed for transplant, with most people being O positive, there are more people to “compete” with. This is one of the reasons it’s so important to talk to your circle to see if you have a loved one who is a match and would consider being a living donor. 

Once a patient is transplanted, they will being post-transplant surveillance, which consists of regular check-ups as well as bloodwork. This is the crucial next step in the process since it isn’t always obvious when a patient goes into rejection. Often times when patients get further out, they will go longer between blood work and check-ups, but it is important to follow your doctors’ guidelines so that if your body does begin to reject your kidney, it can be caught early.  

We invite you to join us for our live events and ask your kidney-related questions! Find us on both Instagram and Facebook: 

• IG Live @patientcitizens the first Wednesday of the month, 12:30pm EST 
• Facebook Live www.facebook.com/patientcitizens the third Wednesday of the month, 12:30pm EST