Your body normally protects you by attacking anything that seems foreign or doesn’t belong. This helps you stay healthy and fight infections. After your transplant, your body will see your new kidney as foreign and may try to attack it. This is called rejection.
To stop this from happening, you must take anti‑rejection medicines (also called immunosuppressants). You will need to take these for the whole time your transplanted kidney is working. Without them, your body is very likely to reject the kidney.
It is very important that you do not miss any doses or stop taking these medicines unless the kidney transplant team tells you to. These medicines weaken your immune system, which means your body cannot fight infections as well.
Immunosuppressants can also increase the risk of other health problems, such as skin cancer and diabetes. The kidney transplant team will explain these risks to you and answer any questions you have.
Last reviewed: 03 March 2026