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01-10-2006, 02:24 PM | #1 |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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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. 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, though. 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.
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Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
01-10-2006, 03:50 PM | #2 |
Back and ready to tart up the place
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Kansas
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so does this mean you have kidney stones, or not?
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01-10-2006, 03:56 PM | #3 |
Your Bartender
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Philly Burbs, PA
Posts: 7,651
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My guess is he's so enchanted with the new imaging software he isn't noticing.
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01-10-2006, 03:58 PM | #4 |
Back and ready to tart up the place
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Location: Kansas
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Yeah, seems that way.
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01-10-2006, 03:59 PM | #5 | |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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Quote:
If I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, it's a stone and it's still there.
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Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
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01-10-2006, 04:22 PM | #6 |
Goon Squad Leader
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
Posts: 27,063
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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.
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01-10-2006, 04:28 PM | #7 |
Back and ready to tart up the place
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Does anyone know what causes them?
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01-10-2006, 05:31 PM | #8 |
Victim of gravity
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Hiding in plain sight
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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
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01-10-2006, 06:41 PM | #9 |
Back and ready to tart up the place
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Location: Kansas
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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...) |
01-10-2006, 07:01 PM | #10 |
Goon Squad Leader
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Seattle
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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
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Be Just and Fear Not. Last edited by BigV; 01-10-2006 at 07:07 PM. |
01-10-2006, 07:31 PM | #11 | ||
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
Posts: 6,669
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Quote:
Quote:
__________________
Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
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01-10-2006, 11:55 PM | #12 |
Victim of gravity
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Hiding in plain sight
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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
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.
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Everything you've ever heard about Fresno is true. Last edited by Tonchi; 01-10-2006 at 11:58 PM. |
01-11-2006, 01:51 AM | #13 |
lobber of scimitars
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Phila Burbs
Posts: 20,774
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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.
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01-11-2006, 12:41 PM | #14 | |
King Of Wishful Thinking
Join Date: Jan 2001
Location: Philadelphia Suburbs
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Quote:
The results came back. I have multiple stones. The smallest is 3mm, which is passable. The largest is 9mm. 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.
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Exercise your rights and remember your obligations - VOTE!I have always believed that hope is that stubborn thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us so long as we have the courage to keep reaching, to keep working, to keep fighting. -- Barack Hussein Obama |
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01-11-2006, 05:16 PM | #15 |
Victim of gravity
Join Date: Mar 2005
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Let us know where to send flowers
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Everything you've ever heard about Fresno is true. |
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