My nephrologist says i am too old for a transplant at 81. True?

@nancyallen2023 welcome to Mayo Clinic Connect. The age criteria for a transplant is up to the transplant center you use (not necessarily your nephrologist). A good transplant center will take all kinds of factors into consideration when doing a pretransplant evaluation not just arbitrary ones like age. That being said, the endorsement from your nephrologist counts for a lot. I am diabetic and have stage 4 Chronic Kidney Disease. I am pursuing a simultaneous pancreas kidney transplant. I have been told I’m too old for that. What is your kidney situation? Why do you think you may need a transplant?

I was diagnosed with Stage 3a CKD about 5 years ago when I was 72-73 and was told I could not qualify for a transplant. As many contributing to this thread may know, I also have type 2 diabetes and other chronic diseases. After a round of shingles I went from Stage 3a to Stage 5 and had to undergo hemodialysis for a while but good medical management and my strict vegetarian renal diet helped me recover some renal function and suspend dialysis and despite a fairly recent diagnosis of gastroparesis and further diet changes I have moved from Stage 5 to Stage 4 then back to Stage 3b. IDK how long this will last but I'm ok for now. I have lab work next week and am interested to find out if the improvement continues or at least is stable.

Thanks for mentoring, Cheryl! Mayo Connect has been extremely helpful to me.

I have CKD also and I would never consider a transplant. Younger people should be the recipients.

@8ea transplants can be very personal. Recipients and living donors, plus family & friends of deceased donors are all entitled to their own opinions. I’d like to offer another perspective. My father-in-law had a kidney transplant at age 76. His granddaughter (my daughter) age 19 was his living donor. This was a life changing event for both of them. He was so grateful for the extra dialysis free years of life. She said she would do it again if she had more kidneys to donate!

My husband was worried about the same thing. He asked the transplant team during the evaluation if he would be taking a kidney from a younger person. They said it doesn’t work that way. They use a formula and if a younger person is a better match/fit that person would get it. Since he is over 70, he would likely get an older kidney that they would not put in a younger person.

Thank you all for your input.

Fantastic, you were able to make that amount of improvement! Best wishes!!!

Hello @nancyaallen2023
I honestly do not know what I would have done if I was in your shoes.
But I came across an eye opener in my life prior to my Kidney transplant. (my wife as the donor)

There was a Father whose daughter was willing to give him a kidney... my opinion was asked .. I said no... reasoning was based on that hereditary genetics are basically responsible for kidney failure. The young daughter had a 2 year old son .. I stated instead save the kidney for your son if he ever needs it (hopefully he would not) .. I got yelled at how can you think like this & that.

Anyway to make the long story short.. The daughter gave the kidney to the father .. turned out the father was irresponsible and his "feel good " factor made go and eat street cuisine etc.. got severely infected and passed away.... even though it did not affect me or my family it was devastating to me to hear this such is life. In our case discussion between me & my wife .. probably we would have opted for a paired exchange.... but would never have accepted a kidney from someone young.
Good Luck & Best Wishes

Am trying to look at all options. I have recently become plant-based which is stabilizing me at stage 4, but mainly trying to avoid dialysis.

I was told I was too old for carotid surgery; that the anesthesia would kill me. That may be the same reason for you. I was 90 at the time; am 95 now so guess I did not need the surgery anyway.