Fresenius Medical Care, the Waltham, Mass.-based renal therapy provider, says it recently began offering nighttime dialysis treatments for patients in its Hayden Lake clinic.

The clinic is the company's first in Idaho to do so, says Clint Fairless, the company's Idaho-area manager. The company's main Spokane dialysis center, located at 610 S. Sherman, has offered nocturnal dialysis for at least three years, Fairless says.

Nighttime dialysis allows patients to receive treatments in the clinic at night, while sleeping or resting, he says, which can free up their days among other benefits it can provide them.

Dialysis is a life-sustaining procedure, usually conducted three times a week for people with failed kidneys. The treatment removes waste products from their blood by pumping it through a machine that acts as an artificial kidney. Dialysis patients typically require treatment on an ongoing basis unless they receive a kidney transplant.

In addition to having their days free for other activities, patients undergoing the nighttime treatment often report having more energy and better dialysis results because the procedure is conducted over a longer period of time than daytime dialysis.

Nighttime dialysis is conducted over a period of eight hours, while daytime dialysis takes four to six hours, Fairless says.

Slowing down the speed of the dialysis makes it less stressful on the body, which reduces side effects, he says. Side effects of daytime dialysis often include fatigue, nausea, and fluctuations in blood pressure.

"Generally, patients feel like they're drained," he says of the daytime procedure.

Because the nighttime procedure is more gentle, and patients usually sleep through it, they have more energy when it's done, often allowing them to be more active after treatment than daytime dialysis patients.

"Most nocturnal patients say they feel much better after they get used to it," he says.

A nighttime treatment schedule also allows patients to enjoy more normal eating schedules, Fairless says. Daytime dialysis can interrupt normal mealtimes as patients generally are advised not to eat during dialysis for a number of physical and health reasons.

"Patients can eat dinner before they come, and have a normal night," Fairless says. "We have beds here so they can go to sleep just like they're at home."

Fresenius Medical Care operates seven dialysis centers in Eastern Washington—two in Spokane and one each in Spokane Valley, Deer Park, Colville, Pullman, and Moses Lake—and four in North Idaho—in Coeur d'Alene, Post Falls and Sandpoint, in addition to the Hayden Lake site. The company operates 1,800 dialysis centers in the U.S. and another 1,100 worldwide.