Traveling with Kidney Disease

Being on dialysis does not mean you cannot travel. Arranging treatment away from home is routine and done constantly — it simply needs more notice than most trips. The single biggest mistake is leaving it too late.

Arranging sessions away from home

Treatment at a center away from your usual one is often called transient dialysis. The process is much the same wherever you are going.

1. Talk to your own center first. Many have a staff member who arranges away-from-home treatment regularly; ask your social worker or your primary nurse whether yours does. If not, they will help you make the arrangements yourself.
2. Confirm with your nephrologist that you are well enough to travel, and settle any changes to your schedule around the trip.
3. Contact centers at your destination and ask about availability for your dates. Space is limited, so be flexible — you may be offered days or times that are not your usual ones.
4. Have your home center send your records ahead. The receiving center needs your dialysis prescription, recent laboratory results, your medicine list, and your serology results.
5. Sort out payment before you go. Confirm what PhilHealth will cover at the receiving facility and what you may need to pay directly.
6. Confirm your appointment as soon as you arrive. Visiting the center beforehand to meet the staff makes the first session considerably less unsettling.

Book your treatment before you book anything else. Fixing flights and accommodation first, then discovering no dialysis slot is available, is the common and expensive mistake.

Documents and medicines to carry

Keep a copy of your records with you at all times, not only in your luggage. If your bag goes missing, the paperwork should not go with it.

• Your dialysis prescription and a recent clinical abstract
• Recent laboratory and serology results
• A complete list of your medicines with doses and timings
• Your nephrologist’s name and your home center’s telephone number
• Your PhilHealth details and any assistance paperwork
• Confirmation of your booked sessions at the receiving center
• A valid ID, and travel documents if going abroad

Carry more medicine than the trip requires — enough for several extra days covers a delay or a cancelled flight. Keep it in your hand luggage in its original labelled packaging, never in checked baggage.

Your diet and fluid limits travel with you. Eating out makes sodium and potassium much harder to judge, and a long journey in the heat makes thirst harder to manage, so plan for both before you set off.

How far ahead to plan

Start at least six to eight weeks before you travel. Allow longer for popular destinations, for Holy Week and the Christmas period, and for anywhere with only one or two dialysis centers.

A workable sequence looks like this:

• Eight weeks out — discuss the trip with your center and your nephrologist, and start contacting centers at your destination
• Six weeks out — confirm your session bookings, then book travel and accommodation around them
• Two to three weeks out — arrange for your records to be sent, and confirm the payment arrangements
• One week out — reconfirm every appointment, and prepare your documents and medicines
• On arrival — check in with the receiving center and confirm your first session

If a trip has to happen at short notice — a family emergency, for instance — tell your center anyway. They may still find something, and they can advise on what is safe if a session has to be moved. Do not simply skip sessions and travel regardless.

Plenty of people on dialysis travel regularly. Speak to your center’s social worker early — they have arranged this before and know which centers respond quickly.