Kidney care guide
How to read your own dialysis lab report
Haemoglobin, creatinine, urea, phosphorus, albumin — a plain-language guide to what each line on your monthly report is measuring, and why your team watches the direction more than the dot.
The AEVONA care team9 min read
In short
- Reference ranges on a report are the laboratory's, and are not treatment targets for someone on dialysis.
- Some values are read differently in dialysis — creatinine and urea especially.
- A single report is a snapshot; your team is reading the direction of travel.
- Keeping your own copies is the only way to see that direction between appointments.
Before you read this
AEVONA is a self-management diary and a booking service. It is not a medical device, it does not diagnose, and it never replaces your nephrologist or dialysis team. Always follow the advice of your treating clinician.
A monthly dialysis report is a page of abbreviations and numbers, handed over in a corridor. Most patients learn to look for whichever line someone once frowned at, and ignore the rest. It is worth knowing roughly what each line is for — not so you can interpret your own results, but so the conversation about them is one you can take part in.
Ask your unit
The range printed beside each result is the laboratory's reference range for the general population. For someone on dialysis, several of these are read completely differently, and the figures your team is working toward may not match the printed range at all. Only your nephrologist can tell you what your report means. This article explains what is being measured, not what your numbers should be.
The lines you will see most often
| On the report | What it is measuring | Why your team watches it |
|---|---|---|
| Haemoglobin (Hb) | How much oxygen-carrying protein is in your blood. | Failing kidneys make less of the hormone that drives red cell production, so anaemia is common. It is a large part of why fatigue and breathlessness happen, and it is treatable. |
| Potassium (K+) | A mineral that affects how heart muscle conducts electricity. | Cleared mainly during sessions, so it accumulates between them. Discussed in detail in our potassium article. |
| Sodium (Na+) | Salt balance in the blood. | Closely tied to thirst and to how much fluid you hold on to. |
| Urea | A waste product from protein your kidneys would normally clear. | Read together with your session details as a rough indicator of how well dialysis is clearing waste — not as a standalone score. |
| Creatinine | A waste product from muscle turnover. | In dialysis this is read very differently from a general check-up. A higher creatinine can reflect more muscle mass, which is not a bad thing. Never read this line on its own. |
| Phosphorus | A mineral that builds up when kidneys fail and dialysis clears it only partly. | Over years it affects bones and blood vessels. Managed with diet and with binders taken at the right moment — see our article on binder timing. |
| Albumin | The main protein in blood, and a rough marker of nutrition. | Eating enough protein is difficult on dialysis and matters a great deal. A falling albumin usually prompts a conversation about food. |
| HbA1c | Average blood glucose over roughly the previous three months. | Tracked if you have diabetes. It is also known to be less reliable in kidney failure, which is why your team may use other measures alongside it. |
Why the direction matters more than the dot
Any single result can be an artefact. Blood taken at a different time of day, before rather than after a session, during a fever, or after an unusual week will move a number without anything having really changed.
What is much harder to explain away is a direction. A haemoglobin drifting down over four months, a phosphorus that has risen with each report, an albumin slowly falling — those are the patterns your team is looking for, and they are almost impossible to see from a folder of loose printouts you have to reorder by hand.
Getting more out of a review appointment
- Keep every report, and keep the date on it. A result without its date is nearly useless.
- Note anything unusual about that fortnight — a fever, a wedding, a missed session, a new medicine — next to the result.
- Before the appointment, write down two questions. Consultations are short and questions evaporate.
- Ask which one or two numbers your team most wants you to keep an eye on. Most people are trying to watch everything, which is not a plan.
- Ask what the plan is if that number moves in the wrong direction, so the next step is already known.
Two questions worth asking outright: “which of these is the one you are watching?” and “what would you want me to do if it goes up again?” Both turn a report reading into something you can act on.
AEVONA will never tell you that a result is good or bad. It shows the number you entered and the range the laboratory publishes, and it leaves the reading of it to the people qualified to do that.
Sources for the AEVONA claims above
PRS §5.8 FR-8.1–FR-8.6PRS §4.2PRS §5.10 FR-10.5
The clinical explanation in this article is general orientation prepared by the aevona care team. It cites no protocol and sets no targets, because the targets that apply to you are the ones your own dialysis unit has given you.