Dialysis Burnout: It Happens

My name is Andrés Falco.

And this is probably one of the most honest things I can say about dialysis:

I didn’t return to dialysis after my first transplant because I was unlucky.

I returned because I had a very bad lifestyle.

At the time, it felt like punishment. Today I understand it became the process that truly taught me how to live. I want to tell you how.

When I returned to dialysis, I was angry at myself.

I felt guilt. I felt frustration. I felt like that place wasn’t meant for me.

I remember arriving mentally tense before every session, and halfway through treatment anxiety would hit me hard.

Many times I asked to be disconnected early, sometimes in very bad ways, without understanding that the only thing I was doing was escaping the machine for a moment while making myself feel worse before the next session because my body had not finished cleaning properly.

At that time, leaving was the only thing that mattered to me.

Today I understand that both the environment and my own mindset were making everything worse.

This may sound strong, but after everything I’ve lived through, I truly believe this:

Kidney disease is often more mental than physical.

Not because the physical side isn’t serious — it is. But because your mindset eventually shapes your discipline, your habits, your consistency, and the future your body will have over time.

Most people want the result.

Very few are willing to let go of the lifestyle that created the problem.

The only thing that slowly changed my life was discipline. And it still holds it.

Learning to sleep properly. Respecting treatment even on the days I didn’t want to go. Eating differently. Training. Organizing my life better. Controlling my emotions instead of letting them control me.

Repeating healthy actions over and over until they became part of who I am.

That’s what I teach today every time someone asks me:

“Why don’t you look sick?”

“Why do you have energy?”

“Why do you live differently than most dialysis patients I know?”

The answer is not luck.

It’s years of changing my standards, my habits, and my mentality.

Looking back now, there’s something else I realize:

The environment where you dialyze matters much more than what you think.

During my hardest years, I had never seen a concept like KidneySPA. And honestly, something like that would have helped me a lot during that stage of anger and burnout.

Not because a center can change your life for you. But because now I understand calm matters. Feeling respected matters. Feeling safe matters.

And when you spend so many hours every week connected to a machine, those details are luxury.

They become part of mental survival.

If you feel burned out by dialysis right now, understand this:

YOU ARE NOT WEAK!

You are probably overwhelmed.

But burnout does not have to become and stay your identity.

Look at it as an alarm signal for you to do something. A message to maybe change something.

That’s when life slowly starts changing too. Only when you choose to change.

Dialysis was never the punishment.

My lifestyle was.

Dialysis became the process that forced me to wake up, rebuild myself, and finally learn how to live with discipline, awareness, and purpose.

And strangely enough that process ended up giving me a much better life than the one I had before.

Written by Andrés Falco

CKD patient, transplanted athlete, and renal health educator