Kidney Transplant Online Support Group

Kidneys suddenly failed June 2011 at age 19 for no apparent reason, hemodialysis from June-December, kidney transplant on Dec. 16, 2011. Grateful for kidney but sometimes can't help but wonder why? Worst part is no explanation and no way to find out why.

Welcome to the group Nicole. I was 19 and pregnant with my daughter when my kidneys first started actually failing. After I had my daughter, and they did a biopsy, it was discovered I had a kidney disease called FSGS. I think we all at some point in time if we are honest with ourselves ask why. My first kidney lasted 4 years. I have had better luck with the second one, and May will be 8 years. My first transplant was Feb 1996. My second was May 2004. Did you have a living donor or was it a cadavar? If you have any questions or just want to talk, feel free to ask away either on the forums or message me. I try to check in now that I have a good bit of time on my hands.

I had a living donor within my family and my aunt donated.

I also had a kidney biopsy with no results, I was told that the scar tissue on my kidneys was so bad they couldn't run all of the tests and were not able to receive any results from the tests they were able to do. I often think about how long my kidney will last and if I will ever need another transplant from not knowing what caused them to originally fail.

Congrats on 8 yrs! Great news, no small feat.

A living donor is wonderful. They tend to last longer on average than cadaveric donors. I had a whole lot of problems with my first kidney. I went through 13 acute rejection episodes with it, and my creatinine never went below 2. Eventually a biopsy finally showed chronic rejection as well.

I think in a way it can be good to not know. If you know what it is, and with some diseases they can affect the transplant, even if a small chance, you always worry about it..