A practical starting point for understanding in-center hemodialysis—what happens during treatment, what the equipment is doing, and the language you may hear from your dialysis care team.
New to hemodialysis?
You do not need to learn everything at once.
Start with the treatment-day basics, keep a running list of questions, and use your dialysis care team for guidance that is specific to your health and treatment prescription.
What happens during hemodialysis?
During hemodialysis, blood moves through tubing to a dialyzer, or filter. The prescribed treatment helps remove waste and excess fluid before the blood returns to the body. The dialysis machine controls and monitors this process throughout treatment.
Your treatment settings are individualized and managed by your dialysis care team. You may hear staff discussing pressures, fluid removal, treatment time, blood flow, and other measurements while they monitor your treatment.
The parts and terms you may hear about
- Vascular access: the access used to connect you to the dialysis circuit. This may be a fistula, graft, or catheter.
- Bloodlines: the tubing that carries blood from your access to the dialyzer and back to you.
- Dialyzer: the filter used during hemodialysis treatment.
- Dialysis machine: the equipment that controls, monitors, and displays information about the prescribed treatment.
- Ultrafiltration (UF): a term you may hear when the care team discusses fluid removal during treatment.
- Target weight: a term your care team may use when discussing your treatment and fluid-management goals.
Preparing for a treatment day
A little organization can make treatment days easier to manage. Your dialysis clinic may have its own instructions, but these general habits can help you stay prepared:
- Bring the items your clinic has asked you to have available.
- Keep an updated medication list and important care-team contact information somewhere easy to find.
- Write down questions between treatments so you do not have to remember everything in the moment.
- Ask your clinic what information they want you to report before treatment.
- Keep commonly used treatment-day items together so they are easier to grab when you leave.
Questions worth writing down
It is normal for questions to come up after you leave the clinic. Writing them down can make it easier to remember what you want to discuss at your next treatment.
- What should I expect during my first several treatments?
- Who should I contact between treatments if I have a question?
- What should I know about my type of vascular access?
- Which treatment numbers or terms would be useful for me to understand?
- What should I bring with me on treatment days?
- Are there symptoms or changes my care team wants me to report before treatment begins?
Free planning resources
Put the information somewhere useful.
Renal Care Planner’s planning tools are live and ready to help you keep treatment-day questions, important contacts, packing reminders, and dialysis information organized in one place.
General education only. Renal Care Planner explains dialysis concepts and helps readers prepare questions. Treatment settings, fluid goals, medications, diet, vascular access care, and other individualized decisions should be discussed with your dialysis care team.