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Week of
October 10th Education is Key to Living a Better Life with
Kidney Disease
Welcome to KidneyTalk!
with your co-hosts Lori Hartwell and Stephen Furst.
What do you think is the best way to deal with the issues of living with a
chronic illness?
According to this week’s guest, Dr. Ken Kleinman, MD, president of Nephrology
Medical Associates and CEO of South Valley Regional Dialysis Center in Tarzana,
CA, education is the key to managing any chronic illness, especially kidney
disease.
It’s hard to learn everything you need to know about kidney disease. And when
you do learn, you run the risk of forgetting it. But don’t worry... it happens
to all of us.
Dr. Kleinman says, “You don’t just have kidney disease—your entire body is out
of whack because kidney disease affects your whole body. There is so much
information to learn that you just can’t do it all in a 15-minute visit.”
So what are we to do? It’s up to us as patients to learn all we can about our
disease, since we’re the ones who have to live with it every day. We can begin
the learning process by asking questions, starting with our own nephrologists.
Dr. Kleinman agrees: “I’m a very strong believer in empowering patients to know
what I know or more. I want to teach patients with kidney disease how to manage
themselves better than I can. It is very important for them to have the power
and knowledge.”
Some tips Dr. Kleinman offers to kidney patients to maintain a healthy lifestyle
include keeping a positive attitude, getting enough dialysis, and advocating for
themselves. “Patients need to be very proactive with their health in general.
People really need to understand early on what they are dealing with to be as
proactive as they can to improve their own health,” advises Dr. Kleinman.
Living with kidney disease is not easy. But when you educate yourself, advocate
for yourself, and empower yourself, you not only learn to live with your
disease, you learn to live your best life.
As Lori says, “An illness is too demanding when you don’t have hope!”
