Kidney Function

In the following video, you will see kidney transplant recipient Don Fosnot and kidney donor Eileen Helms discuss the circumstances that brought them together that likely saved Don’s life:

Short answer: Yes. Long answer…

If you suffer from diabetes, you can receive a kidney transplant form a living relative or from a deceased person. The amount of insulin that is required may increase as a result of the use of immunosupressant drugs to prevent rejection, an increased appetite for food and food intake and the more efficient breakdown of insulin in your body by the new kidney. Many physicians believe that kidney transplantation is the best suited method of treatment for people who are diabetic.

Steroid withdrawal implies the discontinuation of steroid administration post-transplant and needs to be differentiated from steroid avoidance, in which steroids are administered only in the event of rejection. Steroid avoidance has never been popular in the United States, although it has been applied in European countries. Many patients who avoid steroids end up receiving them for rejection anyway. Steroid withdrawal is a more tempting ploy that may be considered in select patients, although the anxiety associated with withdrawal (for both the patients and their physicians) has understandably dampened its popularity. Steroid withdrawal should be considered only in patients who are at least several months post-transplant, have not suffered recent or recurrent rejections, have excellent graft function, and are receiving relatively high doses of cyclosporine. There is some evidence that African-American transplant recipients may not be good candidates for withdrawal.

A clear-cut benefit of withdrawal, in terms of certain steroid-related side effects (bone disease, hyperlipidemia, etc) has not been demonstrated. There may be long-term deterioration in graft function in steroid withdrawn patients, who should be forewarned.