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Is It Safe To Chew Nicotine While Suffering From Renal Disease?

Posted on Tue, 3 Mar 2015

Question: My wife has end stage renal disease caused by Multiple Myeloma. She was on chemo for a long time and the cancer is in "remission".She did hemodialysis for many years and recently switched to peritoneal. She dialysed 8 hours a night and recently they had to add 3 hours of manual. Overall she has a great attitude and doesn't let it get her down but several years ago she started chewing Nicotine Gum to an excess. We get in fights about it because I believe it may be harming her on top of all meds she is on including blood pressure , blood thinners, binders, etc. She would be mortified if I asked her nephrologist. Your thoughts please?

Answered by Dr. Rakesh Madhyastha (13 hours later)

Brief Answer:
detrimental to health

Detailed Answer:
Hello

Thanks for the query

Nicotine is detrimental to her health but as far as kidneys are concerned it might not make sea of change as she is already on dialysis.
The things that nicotine will hamper are

1. Requirement of higher doses of antihypertensives
2. Accelrated atherosclerosis which might lead to heart related issues
3. Gastric problems
4. altered calcium balance and weaker bones

Please Aporoach a specialist for her to taper and stop nicotine as soon as possible.

I hope I was of help, if you have any further queries please get back to me

Regards

Note: For further queries related to kidney problems and comprehensive renal care, talk to a Nephrologist. Click here to Book a Consultation.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar