Fun with cat scans
 

I woke up Monday morning in a lot of pain. The doctors opinion was that going by a specimin and the location of the pain it was possibly a kidney stone, similar to what I had about ten years ago.

Today I went in for the CT scan, which only took about 5 minutes. However, the doctor ordered a second scan which required the drinking of two Barium 'smoothies' (berry flavored) over the next two hours and a return appointment for an iodine IV drip and a second scan.

I went home, drank the two 1/2 liter 'smoothies', and discovered the interesting side effect of all of that stuff hitting my digestive system.

When I showed up for my second appointment, I was told that after discussing it with the doctor, the second procedure was really not necessary for checking for kidney stones and was canceled.http://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/omg2.gif

On the bright side, the pain has lessened and I may not need to take the Endocet she prescribed to get to sleep like I did last night. If I don't take the Endocet, I can go back to work tomorrow. I don't exactly handle heavy machinery, but programming is not something I like to do while impaired. It might be useful for meetings, thoughhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/biggrin.gif.

I paid $10 for a CD with reading software and a copy of my CT scan. Unfortunely, not being a radiologist, I can barely recognize my spine and one other essential piece of my anatomy, much less see any stones.

so does this mean you have kidney stones, or not?

My guess is he's so enchanted with the new imaging software he isn't noticing. :compute:

Yeah, seems that way. :)

You know me so wellhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/wink.gif. Actually, I probably won't know until tomorrow. Considering the lessening of the pain, either it passed already or it was some sort of infection and not a stone. Since there was blood and white cells, it was either stones or an infection.

If I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, it's a stone and it's still there.

I've gone a few rounds with kidney stones. My God. I felt I was going to die, and I feared I would not.

I did eventually live through the agony, and a couple of times I found the stone as it passed. It looked like a little broken crumb of a seashell, half the size of a kernel of popcorn. A jagged, malicious, bloodthirsty, evil seashell, but still. There was *no* way to comfort myself. No position, no hot bath, no rubbing, no cursing--nada. Witness the miracle of modern pharmaceuticals.

If I'm ever in that predicament again, and it's certainly possible, bring on the drugs. I'll drink whatever they recommend, til I burst, until I spend all my time over the toilet. Fine. But just keep the meds coming, for pity's sake. I wouldn't wish them on a snake.

Does anyone know what causes them?

It's a combination of your body chemistry and what you eat, and sometimes whether you have sufficient water intake. Some people seem to have them forming endlessly. If you are fat you will be more likely to have them, but not so much bacause you are fat as the stuff you have eaten combined with other lifestyle choices you have made that got you fat can also get you kidney stones.

BigV is right, it is a pain like no other this side of Iraqi tortures. It feels like a knife stuck in your back, the pain does not subside no matter what you do. Unfortunately, you just have to wait for the particle to make it all the way down :mg:

I thought that they could use ultrasonic resonance or some such to break apart the stones sometimes?


I have heard that it is the male equivilant to childbirth (with no pain medicine...)

I have heard of that too, and I declined that therapy. It was described to me thus:

You sit in a hydrotherapy pool, with your back (and kidneys) against the side of the pool. They wheel the sonic cannon (I don't really remember the name of the machine, some kind of ultrasound generator) line it up against the wall opposite your kidneys and turn it on. The desired effect is to have the sound travel through the mostly uniform medium of water and then when it hits something different, like the kidney stone, it would rattle/vibrate/shake/pound it into dust.

Think about it. They are trying to crush a pebble six inches inside your body, in your freaking kidney, by applying a force from outside. How hard do you have to hit it, do you think? I was told that it's like getting pounded with a two by four. That prospect was very unappealing in my current condition. Maybe if the procedure called for hitting me on the head, there would have been a chance...No thanks.

Edit: I looked it up.

Extracorporeal Shockwave Lithotripsy

Thanks for that link BigV. I especially liked this comment.

The underlines are mine. Actually, the doctor was supposed to give me one but forgot. I may have missed my opportunity.

There's several ways to do the sound-shock method of shattering the little bugger, one of which is to make an incision and feed in something similar to the laproscopic wand used in gall bladder surgery. Just about anything is preferable to the pain, by the time you have been passing one for a few days. But it's rather like an opera singer shattering a glass with her voice, not so much like trying to break something inside you by hitting your outside with a hammer :worried:

Oh, and that business about how they can be "easily" passed by drinking a lot of water and waiting for nature to take its course is wishful thinking. These "stones" are not always rounded and they can get lodged sideways in the tubes. All the water in the world will not expand that tube to let the thing continue on its way.

Shame you missed out on the free tea strainer. Real ones are quite expensive.

Or, you could ask your lovely wife for a knee high and slip it over a wire hanger you bend a loop into.

Oh, and of course, once you figure out how, you have to post some slices from your CT scan.

While it might be fun to try to explain to people at work why I am taking women's pantyhose into the men's room, I think I can get a strainer.

The results came back. I have multiple stones. The smallest is 3mm, which is passable. The largest is 9mmhttp://www.cellar.org/images/smilies/eek.gif.

Since the pain has abated for a while, I'm going to try to go back to work tomorrow. Right now I can only sit comfortably for 15-20 minutes and then go lie down, so it should be interesting.

Heres part of the CT scan view.

Let us know where to send flowers :(

Wow. That does not look fun! I'm sorry you have to go through that. Good luck. :worried:

Um... Yikes. Good luck man.

Any truth to the coffee disolves kidney stones tale?

I thought that was gallstones? I read an article about that just before I had my gall bladder removed.

The coffee reduces gallstones theory is clearly wrong, as I had one big-ass (4 cm diameter) gallstone. Or, if it DID work, that means that I would have had a gallstone the size of a croquet ball otherwise. Wow. That was quite a scary thought.

Crap. Coffee increases your chances of kidney stones.

The one common denominator in people having either gall stones or kidney stones seems to be a diet with large quantities of fatty meats. Are you listening, Atkins Diet?

When I was learning about gall bladder operations, they told me "Female, fat, and forty", you are guaranteed.

:mg:

:confused: Oh dear, then that scan shows Rich is full of hot air?

Worse. Gas.

Probably caused by the "milkshake" they gave him? :sick:

good thought, but the no scans were done after the poor dear ingested the mildly radioactive contrast material.

Mmmm, tasty.

I've heard fair, fat & forty. But the only person I've known personally with gall bladder problems was in her 50s, as dark haired and thin as a whip. Perhaps she was the exception that proves the rule?

Rich you have my sympathy - 9mm is making my eyes water....

Yes, I'm sure there are a lot of exceptions. I even worked with a girl whose thin and 70-ish father had to have his gall bladder removed too.

:mg:

William Shatner Sells Kidney Stone
Jan 17, 5:34 PM EST


The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- An online casino has a piece of Capt. Kirk. Actor William Shatner has sold his kidney stone for $25,000, with the money going to a housing charity, it was announced Tuesday.

Shatner reached agreement Monday to sell the stone to GoldenPalace.com.

"This takes organ donors to a new height, to a new low, maybe. How much is a piece of me worth?" he said in a telephone interview.

GoldenPalace.com is noted for its collection of oddities, which includes a partially eaten cheese sandwich thought to contain the image of the Virgin Mary.

"This is a bold new addition to our fleet," GoldenPalace.com Chief Executive Officer Richard Rowe said in a statement.

The money will go to Habitat for Humanity, which builds houses for the needy.

"This would be the first Habitat for Humanity house built out of stone," joked Darren Julien, president of Los Angeles-based Julien's Auctions, which handled the sale.

Shatner, who played Kirk on the original "Star Trek" TV show and won the Emmy for his role on "Boston Legal," passed the stone last fall.

The deal includes the surgical stint and string used to permit passage of the stone, which Shatner said was so large "you'd want to wear it on your finger."

"If you subjected it to extreme heat, it might turn out to be a diamond," he said.

Shatner said the idea of selling the stone came up after "Boston Legal" raised $20,000 for Habitat for Humanity. With the money for the stone, Shatner said there is about enough funding to build half a house.

GoldenPalace.com originally offered $15,000 for the stone but Shatner turned it down, noting that his "Star Trek" tunics have commanded more than $100,000." His counteroffer was accepted.

So...you want a piece of me? Huh, you want a piece of me? That'll be $25k, please. :D

I had some pain in both my sides last night, even though one stone has already passed and the others did not appear to be moving. I don't have any stones in my left side, so I don't know what happened there.

I was pretty much wiped out this morning, so I ended up taking a personal day. It really wouldn't be fair to call this a sick day.

Also, when I do take sick days, I stay at home since I am being paid to 'get well'. I really want to take Jeffrey to the 4W5 Cafe tonight for sea shantys, so a personal day is a better choice.http://www.cellar.org/images/moresmilies/keys.gif

I agree totally with the pain experience. Though one time I had a real jagged stone that got caught right at the very end of it's voyage out of my system. Very embarrasing at the ER in the middle of the night. :eek:

"Do you drink a lot of water during the day?"
"Sure I do. A pot of coffee, a can of Coke. You know, the usual stuff for a college student."
"That's not what I meant! How much water do you drink in a day?"
"Well, coffee has a lot of water in it..."

The doctor didn't like my answer and, years after having gone through the pain I experienced from those kidney stones, I stick to what he told me: I drink almost a full three liters of water per day, especially when it is warm out. The pain of the kidney stone was so bad I was nauseated and I could barely walk without falling. I remember the nurse commenting that my blood pressure was extremely high compared to the follow-up exam.

Avoid surgery. A girl I knew suffered the same fate in college and had to go under the knife. Once a ureter has been opened to remove a stone, it cannot heal without a supporting, internal piece. "They put a tube in me to keep the ureter from collapsing on itself" she told me. Thinking it was a short section of tubing that covered just the affected area, I asked how they removed it or simply left it in. She told me that no, the tube is not a short one. It is, in fact, a full-length catheter and removing it is very simple and "very unpleasant".

"They just pulled it out."

Water. Lots of water. Must drink tons of water. And cranberry juice. Ow. Ow ow ow. Hydration needed. Daily.

Urinary stent, which does indeed support the ureter (urethra?) during healing to keep it from swelling shut. When my wife had her stone extracted, they stented her; about a nine inch long plastic tube that coiled when it reached the bladder, presumably to hold it in place.

That coil rubbed raw the inside of her bladder to the point that, two weeks post-removal, the pain in her bladder was worse than the pain from the stone. We finally took her to the doctor's office, walked her in (with support from me, she was hurting so badly), and said, "Take this *out*!"

He did.

I hope you continue to feel better Rich. I've not had a stone but will probably have some medical problem resulting from drinking too much water.

There are many in my family that have gone through the pain and suffering as you have. It's not fun, I know.

This is not the key to all health problems but has done very well (so far ) for me. Regular low impact exercise, about a gallon of water a day and some veggies even just once every week or so has saved me from any serious problems.

My genetics are not that great for living a long life without some health challenges, but hopefully some of my habits will delay the ill health that I know is in my future.

Now if you will excuse me, I'll be off dodging traffic on my bike.:lol:

Thanks. Things have been quiet for the past two months. I have a blood test I am supposed to get to check for possible causes like too many minerals.

I hope you came back healthy from the trek.