5 and a half months after my kidney transplant, I consider that I have almost regained my pre-disease fitness! Yet, my kidney failure forced me to stop working and training for more than two years. I want to share with you how I got to where I am now!
Exercise is one of the things I’m happiest to have found again after the transplant. Not only does it help my body feel good and stronger, but it also increases my mental well-being. There are so many benefits that it would be crazy to do without them!
Before my transplant, I was able to go for a walk a few times a week, without being able to do more. Now I can already do dozens of kilometers a day on my bike, participate in a power yoga class and do elliptical at almost maximum resistance! How did I do it, and what would I do differently? Here is a list of 10 tips to get back in shape after a kidney transplant!
1- Talk to your medical team
Obviously, the first thing is to talk to your medical team before starting a new sports activity, especially in the first three months and if you have had any particular complications. I sought advice from my medical team before adding each new sport to my life, until I was told that there was no longer any chance of me injuring the graft or injuring myself. A transplant is a priceless gift, and you should not take chances, even if you dream of moving more again!
Consulting with them is the most important step. I’ll talk about it throughout this article. No one knows better than your transplant team what is or is not a risk to you. No advice I can give is as good as theirs, and I don’t know about your specific condition . I don’t have a heart problem and don’t know the recommendations in this case, either. I can only give you my own experience and hope it helps make the transition to a new active life! Do not hesitate to ask them questions: they are there to help you in all the physical stages of your new life, especially in the first few months.
2- Start by walking the first two months
During the first three months, we must absolutely give our body time to recover. The first two months are even more critical. We have just undergone major surgery and the wound is not yet completely closed. That’s not to mention the wounds inside the body around your new kidney and bladder. In addition, you probably have a double J stent installed between your new kidney and your bladder to ensure that this duct remains open while the tissues heal. Walking is more than enough for your body during these first two months.
Go gradually for the walks outside. Start with a 5-minute walk, for example. If it goes well, increase the time by one minute. Don’t do like me who, two weeks after the transplant, walked outside for 40 minutes 😉 I’ve stretched my physical recovery by doing too much, and I really don’t recommend it.
If you have a flat park near you, take the opportunity to take a nature bath! It mentally helps with recovery. 🙂
Careful! If after a few weeks, you still feel a lot of pain (I was at 6/10 a month and a half after the operation), it may be that you are walking too much! For some people, the pain goes away after a few days. For me, since I walked as much as possible to get back in shape, the pain lasted much longer. I had to take a week without walking to give my body time to really heal, which my good intentions to walk a lot did not allow. If you feel pain when walking, talk to your medical team.
3- No abdominal strength training during the first 3 months
My transplant team warned me not to do abdominal exercices for the first 3 months. We want to give time to heal well to all wounds, internal and external. I delayed starting yoga again because of this, since it is not only a sport of flexibility, but also of strength training.
4- Start with a sport without impacts
After the first two months, if walking goes well without pain and with the agreement of your medical team, you can start sports without impact (elliptical, stationary bike, etc.). For my part, I started with the elliptical, and it went really well. Outdoor walking and elliptical were my exercise during the third month of recovery. Start at a very low resistance level to try. Once again, we take our time! Start with a 5 minutes. If it goes well and painlessly, increase the time by one minute. I talk more about it in tip #5!
Careful! Swimming is prohibited until your transplant team allows it, since we do not want the wounds of the operation to become infected by contact with the pool water and the bacteria it contains.
5- Plan the progression and go slow
This step is very important and in all honesty, I have not done it enough. When things go well, there is a risk of wanting to do more. In my enthusiasm, I often took it to the next level too early because things were going well. Because of that, even though I didn’t have any pain during training, I sometimes had pain that lasted a few days and that prevented me from training during that time.
I recommend starting at the lowest resistance (max 15% resistance) a 5 minutes the first time you do it. If you have pain, stop and talk to your medical team. If you do not have pain, you can do the full 5 minutes.
The next day, increase by only one minute. If it hurts, stop and resume the next day with one minute less.
After two weeks if it goes without pain, you should be at maximum 15 minutes of training, start to increase the resistance. Do at least two sessions at the same painless resistance before moving on to the next level. Increase either time or resistance when training; Avoid doing both. What we want is to progress slowly but surely.
Various possible pains
It is also possible that other parts of your body will hurt when you return to training. My knees were sore quite often. My doctor’s assumption was that a relatively quick return to training (I skipped a few steps, sometimes, in increasing time and resistance) created this pain. Indeed, 3 months after returning to training, I almost never have pain in my knees. They had to strengthen before becoming effective again.
There are also chances of waking up old wounds. In any case, if you feel any pain during a workout, stop and wait to talk to your medical team before starting again!
Basically, the important thing is to have a reasonable plan and follow it. Not to go too fast. Adjust it according to your body’s response. And if necessary, to accept that our body is not going at the speed we want. We want to strengthen our body, not hurt it. And for that, you have to take your time. It will happen, be patient! (and if it goes better for you, great! 😉 But take your time anyway, it’s going to get better pretty fast anyway!)
6- Listen to your body
I talked a lot about it in point 5, but if you have abdominal or graft pain, stop right away! Even if you’re just taking a walk and you start to hurt, take the shortest route home. We don’t take chances with recovery.
After a while, my transplant team told me that I could continue despite the pain, that it was no longer dangerous. I relied on them to really start training more, and it worked well and was very safe!
7- Drink plenty of water
Drinking water is important in everyday life and when exercising in general. This is even more important when you have kidney problems or have received a kidney transplant. If we become dehydrated, it is harder for our only functioning kidney to filter our blood. If you are often dehydrated, permanent graft damage can occur. Since we only have one functioning kidney, it is absolutely necessary to preserve its function; there is no other one to take over if necessary!
In training and even during a walk, we sweat more than normal. It is therefore necessary to drink more water since we lose more. Always bring at least one bottle of water for your physical sessions, and make sure you drink them! You can also ask your transplant team how many litres of water you should drink per day, as the recommendations are not always the same for everyone.
8- Get enough rest between workouts
Often, one has not been able to train for a long time before a kidney transplant, which implies that the initial workouts are particularly demanding on the body. Be sure to plan and take rest days between your training days. Sleeping well is also crucial, because it is during sleep that our body repairs itself and adapts to its new reality!
9- If you have developed transplant diabetes, be careful
For many transplant recipients, anti-rejection medications can cause transplant diabetes. This is my case! Before the transplant, my sugar levels were completely normal, and as soon as I took prednisone, I started diabetes.
During training, I often had hypoglycemia. This is common during exercises since it uses up our sugar reserves and therefore lowers the sugar level in our blood. What we want to avoid is falling into a coma because of hypoglycemia. Your transplant team and possibly an endocrinologist should help you manage your blood sugar on a daily basis.
Over time and with my medical team, I developed different tricks to avoid this scenario. Before an exercise, I check my sugar level with my glucometer to see if I need to have a quick snack before I start. I put fruit juice in my water for quick absorption of sugars. I bring snacks to my bike rides and bring my blood glucose meter so I can measure my sugar levels if I’m not well. Soon, I will be talking to a nutritionist to help me manage the sport and my diabetes. If I don’t feel well during a workout, I stop and go to measure my blood sugar. I still experience hypoglycemia sometimes, but I learn by talking about it with my team and measuring my sugar levels at the appropriate times.
My message is that diabetes is serious if left unchecked. It is important to take this into account in your post-transplant active life if you have newly developed it!
10- Start living again!
If your medical team agrees and the first three-four months have passed, spoil yourself! It’s time to start living again! It feels so good and you become so proud of yourself to get back on track!
Before starting or restarting a sport, talk to your medical team. Some sports are not recommended for kidney transplant recipients, especially since the graft is located so close to the skin and is very vulnerable to contact (e.g. rugby and American football are sports that are forbidden to me). If you have polycystic kidney disease, these sports are even less recommended since there is a risk of bursting cysts during violent contact.
I hope my experience and these tips have helped you plan for a return to active living and training. If you have any questions, feel free to write to me on my social medias or in the comments below!
See you soon,
Judith – The PKD Warrior
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