The last 30 hours or so I've been having another of my periodic kidney stone episodes. It started just as I was getting ready to leave work Tuesday then got worse over the next few hours. I was pretty miserable overnight, even after I took some pain killers I still had from last time. The pain killers did let me sleep a little bit. Not continuously, but for an hour or so at a time sometimes. By morning I'd passed a few small stones (at least 3, maybe more).
I'd hoped to go to work Wednesday, but in the morning I was better but not great. So I planned to just come in for my first meeting a few hours later. When that time came I got dressed and showered, but then as I was about to head out the door I started getting faint and nauseous . So I reluctantly rescheduled the meeting and then just crashed.
Aside from a quick trip to the Doctor (Brandy made me go) I have basically been asleep off and on ever since. The Doctor gave me more pain killers and a bunch of antibiotics to fight off the infection, etc. I think (hope) I'm done passing stones for now, but I've been running a 102 fever from the associated infection.
Fun.
About 30 minutes ago I took a second pain killer (Oxy) and so at this very instant I'm feeling better than I have since I left work yesterday. Things are still uncomfortable, but the pain killers have me in a happy place anyway and I feel semi-functional. Still wouldn't want to ger all that far away from the bathroom though.
The doctor is starting me (once again) on a series of tests and is reffering me to a specialist. I started down this road in Pennsylvania, then again in Florida, but each time I've ended up moving before it got anywhere. Basically, someone my age having regular (a couple times a year) kidney stones and UTIs is very rare and unusual even taking into account my non-ideal diet, general state of health, etc.
In Florida I got further down the investigative path than ever before. I went from the Primary Care doctor who just had the usual "take pain killers and antibiotics and suffer through it" to a urologist who ran a whole bunch of tests and basically determined that he could not tell why I was developing so many of these and so he reffered me to a kidney specialist who wanted to start a whole new round of detailed tests to try to find just what was wrong with my kidneys, and therefor how to treat it. But then the doctor died and then I moved. So we got no more information there.
So once again I start the cycle. I'll go to the urologist in a few weeks. They will do a bunch of tests. Maybe they will find something new. If not, they'll send me to a kidney specialist and then I'll do a lot more tests. Hopefully then they will find a cause.
So far none of these kidney stone episodes have been VERY bad. Some pain killers, some antibiotics, and a couple days of rest, and it is over. I haven't needed the ultrasound treatments or surgery. But... the fact that since the first episode in 1995 this has gone from being a one time thing, to once every couple years, to once every three or four months... with additional related UTIs in between... is troubling. It *would* be nice to know what the underlying cause is so that I might be able to start doing things to make it happen less often.
Sigh. Oh well. The pain killer is working quite nicely at the moment though. I almost feel normal. Or at least I don't care. Of course I am also quite loopy at the moment and shouldn't drive and such. Hopefully by morning I'll be in good shape to go to work. I don't like missing work. I don't like being sick.
Brandy says I shouldn't go to work unless my fever drops below 100 and I don't have to run to the bathroom every few minutes. Spoilsport! :-)
one of my friends from college (who's still a friend) had always had issues with kidney stones. i don't know what the cause was, but i know that a number of years ago he had some sort of electro-vibration-waves-thingamajig treatment that was supposed to "shake up" and "break up" the stones into miniscule pieces that either stopped the stones from re-occuring and/or just made the passing of them much easier.
Every time I've had the whole battery of tests done, with the MRIs and the Ultrasounds and all the rest, they have ended up saying that all the stones I have up there are small enough that the lithotripsy (the procedure you are talking about) is not indicated. I'll be sure to ask again this time though. :-)
Not that it sounds fun. My dad had it done once.
Can we sell these stones comercially? Maybe you are missing a moneymaker here!
I still have the last three. Name your price, I'll get them in the mail to you right away.
How about we put them on ebay and let's see what they fetch?
Tell ya what, I'll send you the stones for free, and you can Ebay them and just give me a 40% cut.