Blazer's HELP-Apheresis Experience

Hi all. So yesterday I did the HELP-apheresis here in Germany. I want to write a quick report about how it went, how i feel now, etc.

So let us begin!

First of all I arrived at the nephrologic clinic that does the apheresis. They showed me the machine, the room where it will take place etc. They had nice loungers with blankets where the apheresis will take place aswell as a tv + a nurse that supervises it the whole time. so i were never alone.

They placed thick needles in my right and left arm and tried to started the machine and oh boy was i nervous. My hands were cold and sweaty. They told me everything will be fine and i tried to trust and relax. Then she asked "does something feel different now?" i answered "should it?". She answered me "i just started the machine". LOL. Ok it was really as she said you wouldn't feel too much.

Fast forward the procedure was taking 1h 30min to filter 3L of my blood (crazy much). We stopped at 3L because i began to feel dizzy. I was fine during the procedure but the last 10minutes was really tough. My body said: Its enough now! Stop. So we did stop there. They listen to you and communicate good so that wasnt a problem.

I couldn't sit for atleast 30minutes because i was really really dizzy and had to drink electrolytes aswell as some sugar etc to get slowly back up. It took me atleast 40minutes to stand again. It was really rough on my body apparantly.

I felt not too great after it but not horrible. Just dizzy, sleepy and exhausted. But no pain, no massive dizzyness so I thought ah well its ok.

Tonight i slept 10 hours straight. Guess my body was really exhausted from the procedure (usually i sleep 7h).
Sad to say but I didnt think it benefited me. I feel no other then exhausted from the procedure.

The upside: Apparantly it didnt harm me massively. Just exhausting to do it. We will see. I keep you updated.

Sorry to hear that Blazer, did they say if it helped then you would notice improvements straight away?

i talked with a MD i know who is sick aswell, and she said it might be because of some herx-ish reaction i feel horrible because it pulled a lot of dirt.

time will tell thanks guys

glad things are returning to normal

i did some more microscopy this past week - testing out a more advanced microscope - and will post some images when i get time - as there were some interesting findings in the blood that are perhaps relevant to these filtering type approaches