When your kidneys do not work well, dialysis is needed to remove extra fluid and waste products such as creatinine and urea, as well as free water from the blood in your body. It can be done either by haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis, where the former is the most common choice among patients.
Hemodialysis is a type of dialysis that uses a machine with an artificial filter to remove wastes and extra fluids from the blood. This treatment also helps control the chemical balance in your body and helps control blood pressure. Each treatment takes about 4 hours and is done 3 times each week.
The need for dialysis may be acute (when there is high and increasing level of serum potassium, fluid overload-impending pulmonary edema, increasing acidosis, pericarditis and severe confusion) or chronic (e.g., End Stage Renal Failure, presence of uremic sign and symptoms affecting all body systems, hyperkalemia, fluid overload not responsive to diuretics and fluid restriction, and a general lack of well-being).