Diet

After you receive a transplant, it is possible that many of the diet restrictions you had during dialysis will disappear. This however, doesn’t mean that proper nutrition is any less important.  Also, if you have other conditions like hypertension and diabetes, you will need to continue following those diet restrictions. 

Diet and proper nutrition become even more important because some of the immunosuppressants can also increase blood sugar levels leading to an increased risk of diabetes and increase your appetite.

Also, even though many of your dialysis related restrictions go away, there are still things that you should keep doing. These are items that should continue to be limited in your diet. 

• Processed foods
• Sodium
• Excess fat
• High sugar foods
• Alcohol
• Raw sushi
• Limit buffets and salad bars
• Grapefruit and star fruit or grapefruit juice (interacts with medications)
• Uncooked cookie dough
• Bean sprouts
• Undercooked meats
• Cold deli meats 

These items can also either conflict with your medications or put you at a higher risk for an infection.

Maintaining an ideal bodyweight and eating properly will lower your risk for heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes and help reduce complications from surgery. Being underweight or undernourished can be just as bad as being overweight. Your body needs fuel to work and it needs vitamins and nutrients to heal and be healthy. Your nutrition will be an excellent resource to help you with your diet.

To learn more about nutrition, stop by our DPC nutrition management page. [1]