Living with a kidney transplant

The following lifestyle advice is usually recommended to help you stay healthy after akidney transplant.

Stop smoking

If you smoke, it's strongly recommended that you stop as soon as possible because smoking can reduce the life of your new kidney and can increase your risk of developing some types of cancer.

The NHS Smokefree website can provide support and advice to help you stop, and your GPcan also recommend and prescribetreatments that can help. See facts about salt for more information and advice.

Exercise and weight loss

Once you've started to recover from the effects of surgery, you should try to do regular physical activity.

Adults should do at least 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) of moderate-intensity exercise every week. This includes any activity that increases your heart and breathing rate it may make you sweat, but are still able to hold a normal conversation.

Examples include:

• fast walking
• riding a bike on level ground or with few hills
• swimming
• tennis

Choose physical activities that you enjoy, as you're more likely to continue doing them.

It's unrealistic to meet these exercise targets immediately if you have not exercised much in the past. You should aim to start gradually and then build on it.

If you're overweight or obese, you should try to achieve a healthy weight. This can be safely done through a combination of eating a healthy, calorie-controlled diet and regular exercise. Aim for a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 25.

Being overweight will also increase your blood pressure. Some medications could be potentially harmful if you have had a kidney transplant and are taking immunosuppressant medication.

Immunosuppressants and infection

If you have a kidney transplant, you'll usually need to take immunosuppressant medications for the rest of your life to prevent your body's immune system from attacking the new kidney.

Widely used immunosuppressants include tacrolimus, ciclosporin, azathioprine, mycophenolate, prednisolone and sirolimus.

However, taking immunosuppressive medications on a long-term basis will weaken your immune system and make you more vulnerable to infections, so you'll need to takeextra precautions against infection:

• avoid contact with people you know currentlyhave infections, such as Herpes zoster virus or flu
• practise good personal hygiene wash your hands regularly with soap and hot water, particularly after going to the toilet and before preparing food and eating meals
• if you cut or graze your skin, clean the area thoroughly with warm water, dry it, then cover it with a sterile dressing

Make sure your vaccinations are up to date, although you won't be able to have any vaccines that contain live viruses, such as the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine .

When toget medical advice

If you think you may have an infection, contact your GP or transplant centre for advice. Prompt treatment may be required to prevent serious complications developing.

Symptoms of infection can include:

• a high temperature (fever)of 38C (100.4F) or above
• headache
• aching muscles
• diarrhoea
• vomiting