A chronic disease like End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD) can have a big impact on your mental health. The changes to your lifestyle, frequent treatments, and financial burden of medical bills or missed work can challenge you mentally and emotionally. It’s not uncommon for people with ESRD and other chronic diseases to suffer from anxiety or depression or to turn to substance abuse.

Depression and Kidney Disease

Depression is a mental health condition that makes you persistently sad. It’s also common to lose interest in activities you used to enjoy and struggle with motivation, even for simple things like getting out of bed in the mornings. Other symptoms include:

• Increase or decrease in your appetite
• Sleep issues (sleeping either too much or struggling to fall or stay asleep)
• Fatigue (even when you “should” be well rested)
• Feeling like you’re worthless or not good enough
• Being unable to concentrate
• Having thoughts of death or suicide

While it’s normal to be sad or mourn the loss of the life you had before being diagnosed with ESRD, if you have persistent symptoms of depression for two weeks or more, it’s time to talk to your doctor or social worker about what’s going on.

Note: If you are having thoughts about death and suicide, talk to your healthcare team or a family member about it. You are not alone, and there is help available. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (1-800-273-8255) offers free, 24/7, confidential support if you need it. If you feel overwhelmed and want to hurt yourself or others, call 911.

Anxiety and Kidney Disease

The stress of ESRD and other chronic diseases can also trigger anxiety. Anxiety is another mental health condition that can make you feel uneasy, paranoid, and apprehensive. You may experience panic attacks, which can happen quickly and aren’t always triggered by something obvious. Some of the different types of anxiety include:

• Generalized anxiety: Involves intense fear and worry for little to no reason
• Panic disorder: Happens when you experience repeated panic attacks. Panic attacks are sudden and intense fear with physical symptoms such as heart racing, difficulty breathing, sweating and feelings of terror.
• Agoraphobia: Involves fear and avoidance of places and situations that might cause feelings of panic, feeling trapped, feeling helpless or embarrassed. This condition can make it difficult for you to leave your home.
• Social anxiety: Characterized by intense worry about daily social interactions
• Phobias: Involves intense fear of a specific situation or object

Substance Abuse and Kidney Disease

When stressed, some people turn to substances like drugs and alcohol as a way of managing their stress and feelings. A chronic diagnosis can trigger stress and make some people feel like they need to “self-medicate” with drugs and alcohol. However, this is very dangerous to your overall health and can lead to addiction, relationship issues, and financial problems. This is even more dangerous for people going through dialysis treatments as these substances are things that will need to be filtered out of your body during dialysis. If you’re turning to drugs and alcohol because of stress, read our tips below on healthy ways to deal with the stress of ESRD and talk to your doctor. If you’re turning to this because of pain, talk to your doctor about different pain management options.

Help and Treatment

If you’re suffering from anxiety, depression, or substance abuse, you’re not alone. Again, this can be quite common for people who are diagnosed with a disease like ESRD. If you find yourself experiencing symptoms listed above, try these tips:

• Talk to your doctor. Your doctor can help you get help with things like medications for anxiety and depression or a referral to a therapist or rehabilitation center if needed.
• Talk to your social worker. If a social worker is part of your healthcare team, they are a great resource! They can help you with techniques to manage the challenges you are facing, and they can connect you with things like financial help, support groups, and other resources in your area.
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle. Getting regular exercise, eating a healthy diet, and getting good sleep are all important healthy habits. While there are certainly benefits of these things to your physical health, they can impact your mental health as well.
• Find sources of support. Talking to friends and family members you can trust about what you’re going through can help you to feel encouraged and supported. If you feel like you’re not able to talk to friends and family members or feel like they don’t understand, a support group may be able to help. Your social worker or other members of your healthcare team may be able to help you find a local, in-person support group or a virtual one.

Health Systems Management, a dialysis management company, is based in Tifton, Georgia. Our company provides turnkey dialysis management services to Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist dialysis clinics in North Carolina and Emory Healthcare dialysis clinics in the Atlanta, Georgia area. For more information about Health Systems Management, our locations and job openings for RNs, LPNs, PCTs and CCHTs please visit: healthsystemsinc.com

Primary Source: Kidneyfund.org