Marjorie Hunter hasn't taken an insulin shot for 12 years. Still, after her transplant she took 11 different medications eight times a day and averaged 40 pills a day for nearly a year. Currently, she takes three immunosuppressants which she will have to continue taking until the end of her life, or the life of her transplant organ. This vast array of medications is not uncommon. After a transplant, patients take an average of 10 to 15 different kinds of pills.
Side effects are also a constant worry.
This is a good deal higher than in the general population. And there is an 80 percent chance of contracting an infection after a transplant. Forty percent of deaths after transplants are due to infection alone or infection combined with organ rejection and its treatment. When used together they are 100 times more effective than the commonly used antirejection drug cyclosporin. Of all the antirejection drugs, they have provided the most impressive results with a 92 percent patient survival rate 12 months after transplantation.