Living with a chronic kidney condition can leave you feeling isolated. It can be hard to express how you feel to your family members, friends, and colleagues who don’t experience the disease-related challenges you do every day.
Support groups for kidney disease, whether peer- or facilitator-led, provide an opportunity to connect with other kidney disease patients who understand what you’re going through.
Q- Why join a CKD support group?
Joining a support group will allow you to
- Safely share your emotions
- Hear first hand experiences of living with the disease and its treatments
- Trade coping mechanisms
- Receive encouragement
- Feel connected, understood, and empowered
Click on the below links for different CKD support groups.
- American Association of Kidney Patients: The AAKP has a locator feature for independent support groups in 34 states, along with information about how to start your own support group.
- National Kidney Foundation: The NKF offers a program called NKF Peers. You can call or fill out a form online, and you’ll be matched with a peer mentor. Your mentor will call you to provide moral support and share experiences and tips about the disease management and treatments.
- Responsum for CKD: That’s us! We connect a supportive patient community via our digital platform, where patients can find access to reliable information about CKD, as well as share stories, experiences, and advice.
- Renal Support Network: RSN holds in-person support meetings at its own Studio Hope in Glendale, California. It also offers a support group locator for all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
- DialysisFinder.com: DaVita Kidney Care’s online locator can help you find a dialysis center near you. Even if not on dialysis, a social worker or staff member at the center may be able to direct you to a local support group. DaVita.com forum, you can also join or create a group at myDaVita.com, the online resource to help you manage and understand all aspects of your kidney health.
- Kidney & Urology Foundation of America (KUFA)- The Kidney & Urology Foundation of America has had a long tradition of working personally with patients and families to guide them through the hard times.
- Online support groups, whether public or private, come in various forms. Facebook groups include:
Reference- Support Groups for Kidney Disease Patients. (n.d.). Responsum Health. Retrieved February 16, 2021, from https://responsumhealth.com/chronic-kidney-disease/support-groups/