What is Dialysis?

What does it mean to be on dialysis?
I've read all the technical terms and I just need it to be explained.
A friend attempted suicide and now he is on dialysis , can you tell me why that would happen and if he could die?

In medicine, dialysis is primarily used to provide an artificial replacement for lost kidney function (renal replacement therapy) due to renal failure. Dialysis may be used for very sick patients who have suddenly but temporarily, lost their kidney function (acute renal failure) or for quite stable patients who have permanently lost their kidney function (end stage renal failure). When healthy, the kidneys maintain the body's internal equilibrium of water and minerals (sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, sulfate) and the kidneys remove from the blood the daily metabolic load of fixed hydrogen ions. The kidneys also function as a part of the endocrine system producing erythropoietin and 1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol (calcitriol). Dialysis treatments imperfectly replace some of these functions through the diffusion (waste removal) and convection (fluid removal). Dialysis is an imperfect treatment to replace kidney function because it does not correct the endocrine functions of the kidney.[1

I belive it is a machine that pumps your blood and filters it so there are no more toxins.

Dialysis is an artificial cleansing of blood by machine. People who have kidney failure need dialysis because their kidneys can't filter their blood properly.

If your friend took pills he might have messed up his kidneys and that's why he needs dialysis. I hope he will be ok.

Dialysis is when you kidney begins to fail and your body holds too much fluid and dialysis is the only way you can get rid of excessive fluid...you don't die as soon as you get on dialysis if anything it helps you

perhaps his situation caused his kidney's some damage, and now they are not able to cleanse/filter themselves on its own. so, now he needs the assistance of the machine to do it for him. sorry to hear about your friend, hope he gets better soon. PEACE GOD SPEED

Dialysis is a medical practice that is needed when your kidneys aren麓t working. The person have to be connected to a machine that make the work that kidneys can麓t do. Clearence the body blood. Frecuently you have to do it 3 times a week.
The pronostic of die is difficult to make, there are a lot of things to value.

If I understand it correctly, your friend's kidneys must have sustained damage during his suicide attempt and now they are not doing their job of filtering his blood to remove impurities. During the process of dialysis, his blood is taken from his body and re-routed through a machine that purifies the blood before returning it to his body. People requiring dialysis usually eventually require a kidney transplant to sustain life because the mechanical process isn't as good as what a normal healthy kidney does, but I think there are cases where kidneys can repair themselves in time if the damage isn't too severe, and dialysis may only be temporary during the healing period.

Dialysis used alone usually refers to peritoneal dialysis, wherein a solution is infused into the peritoneal cavity (into the abdomen) for the purpose of filtering out waste products when the kidneys cannot adequately perform this function. Perhaps your friend tried to OD on Tylenol, which is not an uncommon cause of needing dialysis because in excessive amounts, this normally safe medicine causes significant kidney damage. It is possible that he could die (this happened to a friend of mine, who wound up with renal failure and died a few years after such an overdose), but if it is caught quickly and the dose was not extreme it is possible there wouldn't be severe lasting effects.