A new heart, a kidney or a lung? The transplant is successful, then there is probably no happier people than the one with the new institution, one would think. Often, this is not so.
Who has heard the heart beating now in my chest and me alive? It may be that the character traits of the deceased person or memories transferred to me? Such thoughts would have consulted a lot of TRANS-plan, Katharina Tigges-Limmer, head of the medico-psychological Department in the heart center Bad Oeynhausen. Patients with a heart are aware of that it is the heart of the deceased. “The new happiness or a new Chapter of my life is based on death,” says the psychologist to the idea that many patients share with her. “The psychosomatic meaning of the heart is different than in other institutions, and a higher psychosomatic load.” The heart is always the seat of the soul and the feelings. Our emotions, we locate in the heart. “I think the heart is more than just the Pumphohlmuskel”, Tigges-Limmer.
The fear as a constant companion
‘Hopefully, the heart arrives in a timely manner. I can’t make it to heart transplantation? Hopefully everything works out and nothing goes wrong.’ The long waiting period, often of several months, eating away at the nerves. The thoughts and Fears of the patient were similar to each other, says Tigges-Limmer: “I’m gone for a week from home. It’s got to run everything. How will my children in this time?” These and other questions will determine before the Operation, usually the life of the patient. And the uncertainty is always there.
The greatest load after surgery, the psychologist explains. The engagement is over, the Patient is in the ICU with a new heart. “We offer it to the patient to make a splash trance his heart, so that it is not only somatically. Patients often want to record an emotional attachment to the new heart.”
The Patient has a new Organ. It works, the Doctors are happy. But there are other Fears: ‘Takes on my body, the new heart, or he rejects it? As commented on individual treatment by a therapist, is for most of the TRANS-plan is necessary. Because as a side effect it may lead to depression. This is true not only for heart transplants, one of which is in Germany, 260 in the year 2017, have been carried out.
The Operation was a success, the Patient is depressed
Still there are far too few donor organs
A successful Operation does not mean that it is also of the Psyche. “The patients are, in spite of Transplantation of chronically ill and do not need to transplant everything to the body rejecting the Organ,” explains Monika De Zwaan. She is the Director of the clinic for psychosomatics and psychotherapy of the Hannover Medical school. This applies to heart transplants, as well as to a transplanted lung, or kidney. Depression can have on the result of a large impact.
After a transplant also biologically a lot, so De Zwaan change. “The inflammation parameters, go to the top. Studies show, if the Depression remains strong, or a depressed mood to be added, then the risk of rejection is higher.” And, adds de Zwaan, after the Operation, the TRANS-plan is not consulted healthy. “He is still chronically ill, must be a regular and disciplined medication.” The above are all immunosuppressants. To prevent a rejection.
An Alliance for life
The most common kidney TRANS-be and transplanted, more than 1.360 kidney, there were 2017. Up to the surgery, the Patient usually gets a so-called renal replacement therapy. That is to say: dialysis. In the worst case, these people wait up to ten years on the life-saving Organ. According to the kidney are discounted most commonly the liver, heart and lung transplant.
A third of all kidney transplants are from living donors. The patients must then wait, usually for so long. Some get the kidney even before you ever need to the dialysis. In each
The most common kidney transplantation can be transplanted to
m case, but there are constraints – even for the donor. “A kidney has of course influence on the body. The donor must be very well chosen,” says De Zwaan. It would of course harm a healthy person, and often it come to side effects that the donor is not prepared.
“You will take no young man who is 25 years old, and the life. Or a wife of 25 years, the family planning. If you only have one kidney, it increases the risk for pregnancy complications,” says De Zwaan.
In Europe, there are still different regulations for organ donation
The donor must be physically very fit. And it is only the donor, the know the recipient well. You must have a close emotional connection. “Most of the donors in us are either parents, the donations for their children or spouse,” says De Zwaan. But this can lead to problems, and are primarily psychological in nature: “Two partners separate and one kidney from the other. Or someone gives his child a kidney, and the Organ is rejected,” explains de Zwaan possible situations. If the receiver is doing poorly, it is usually the donor bad. But most of the donors would again make an Organ available. In a study with 400 donors, 90 percent said that they would do it again.
Goodbye to the second family
After a transplant, there is often a kind of “Honeymoon Phase”, such as in the case of a new kidney. Three times a week dialysis, for many years, and all of a sudden the patients are free to move. However, in this time commitments. Finally, the patient know the doctor and the other parties Concerned. “If you do that over the years, then something like family.
The one who is now transplanted and everything is going well – one of the dialysis does not need. What was the life in the last few years, and to which one has adapted, is suddenly gone. A Blank,” says De Zwaan. Some would still long to visit. But it was a total conversion of one’s own life, not only because of the new organ.