Shortness of Breath and Abdominal Pain Within Minutes of Starting Hemodialysis

Shortness of breath during dialysis--a role of bicarbonate in dialysis fluid?

Occasionally dialysis patients show symptoms that indicate intolerance in the way dialysis is delivered. This paper describes two cases of transient shortness of breath during the initial treatments after starting online haemodiafiltration (HDF). Our actions to deal with these symptoms focused on reducing the bicarbonate gain during the first phase of the dialysis treatment. As the symptoms gradually disappeared we hypothesise that the bicarbonate concentration in the dialysis fluid may play an important role for the development of shortness of breath and hypoxemia during HDF treatments.