Will high blood pressure affect your living kidney donor evaluation or candidacy?
What level of high blood pressure is safe to someone’s long-term kidney health, in the context of living donation?
Living Donor Toolkit: Resources for Those Considering Living DonationLiving Kidney Donor Medical Toolkit
Welcome to the Living Kidney Donor Medical Toolkit, a series of chapters about specific aspects of living kidney donor evaluation and experience. This toolkit was designed to add to the general information about living donation that you can find on transplant living, or may have received from your transplant center. Individual toolkit chapters address how a specific topic might affect your kidney donation evaluation, candidacy, and experience. For example, one chapter explores whether someone with high blood pressure can be a kidney donor. Another chapter discusses obesity and kidney donation. There are also chapters on risks of living kidney donation, including long-term outcomes, impact on future pregnancy, and mental health. Not all of the topics will apply to you, and we invite you to choose the chapters of interest to you. Your transplant team will also talk with you about your medical history and kidney donation.
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Living donors and the people who support them through the donation may worry about costs, such as:
Loss of pay or employee benefits:
- Lost wages due to recovery time
- Missing work from the evaluation
- Using up vacation, holiday, and sick days
- Concerns that the employer might not support a person’s absence from work
Insurance and medical costs:
- Trouble buying disability or life insurance after donating – or paying more for it
- Uncovered medical costs, which will differ by transplant center and insurance contract.
Daily life needs:
- Transportation to the transplant center for testing, surgery, and follow-up care
- Food, housing, and other needs for donation-related visits
- Paying for family care – child care, elder care, pet care
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