Your immune system is the tool for protecting the body from foreign invaders. These are things that can make you sick, like bacteria, viruses, or fungi. The immune system has many layers of defense and is made up of a complex series of organs and cells. For our purposes, the important part of the immune system you should know about is in the blood. These include things like antibodies and white blood cells.
Antibodies are like tiny flags that tag and identify foreign invaders. White blood cells should come along until the cell is identified, and eat up the foreign cell. In addition to eating up outside invaders, your immune system will also check if any of your body cells are becoming abnormal, for example, cancer cells.
The immune system is going to destroy dysfunctional and dead cells. For example, when you receive a kidney transplant, the immune system will recognize that the new kidney is foreign, and mark it with antibodies. The immune system treats the new kidney as a foreign invader and is going to work hard to combat it. This damages the transplanted kidney making it unable to work. This is called rejection. To make sure this doesn't happen, you are given immunosuppressant drugs after you get a kidney transplant.
Immunosuppressant drugs are called anti-rejection medications, or transplant medicines. As the name suggests immunosuppressant suppress your immune system. They work towards making them weaker by acting on white blood cells.
You need to take the pharmaceutical drugs at the same dosage, the time given, and remember to take them regularly. When you don't take your medicines regularly, your body's amount of medication can get too small to properly suppress your immune system. Your immune system won't get big and aggressive and start destroying your kidney again.
The transplant medicines keep you safe, but they have side effects. Since your immune system is suppressed, the most common side effects of transplant medicines are: you are more likely to get an infection from bacteria or viruses, and your body is less able to keep abnormal cells like cancer cells in check. Some types of cancer like skin cancer or lymphoma are more common after transplant. You can help reduce the risks of any side effects. Your transplant team will explain this in more detail after you've had your transplant. In summary, by now you know that when you get a kidney, rejection is abnormal part of the natural defense of your body. Medicinal transplants only function when administered routinely and on time.
Some side effects of the transplant medicines for super-infection and certain forms of cancer are increased.
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