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Kidney Stones

Swifty

Swifty

doesn't negotiate with terriers
Joined
Sep 15, 2013
Messages
33,684
I've started this thread partly because I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself, partly for advice and also so hopefully someone else will benefit one day from any advice shared here ..

I've been feeling ill and in moderate dull pain for the last 4 months .. after a series of doctor's appointments and hospital tests I have kidney stones in both kidneys. My new boss has been understanding, I explained to him that every days feels like I was kicked inbetween the legs yesterday. It's lost me my last job through poor performance. I'll more than likely have keyhole surgery which apparently isn't painful so I'm almost looking forward to that just so I can get everything back to normal ..

Has anyone else here been through this and do you have any advice please? .. thanks in advance.
 
No advice, I'm afraid, just a story: in 1984 I skippered a 72' ketch to Norway for a Venture Scouts expedition. We battled through bad weather, but eventually made it to the Sognfjord, where the scouts went off to explore Europe's largest ice sheet - the Jostedal glacier.

Later, after a crew change, we set off back towards England. The weather was good, but after a sandwich lunch one day off the Norwegian coast I began to feel ill. I rapidly got worse, and started vomiting. I told the Mate he'd have to get me some medical assistance, and I don't remember much about the next few hours as I was mostly unconscious. The next morning I woke up in hospital in Bergen, feeling much better! The doctors said X-rays showed a shadow on my kidneys, and they thought I'd had kidney stones which had passed spontaneously. They were happy to discharge me, so I had to find my way back to the boat by taxi.

The mate, with the assistance of the Norwegian lifeboat, had anchored the boat off an island near Bergen, awaiting developments. My employers, the Ocean Youth Club, were in a fluster, thinking they'd have to find a relief skipper and get him out to Norway, so they were happy to hear that I was fit to carry on! And the trip home was a doddle - we barely had to touch a sail all the way back to east Anglia!

So that was my encounter with kidney stones (if that's what it was) - less than 24 hours, start to finish. I've since read that K.S. are one of the most painful things you can have (how do they measure that?). And that was the first time I'd ever been hospitalised. (The next time was also abroad, in Antigua, but that's another story.)

So commiserations, Swifty, and I hope it works out OK for you.
 
Thank you for your kind words sir ... I think I must be better off than most in this situation as I only have one stone in each kidney but it's still knocking me about some although I'm not in agony. I've also heard that peeing them out is as painful as child birth according to some women who've endured both. :( ... I'm off to the doctor in 20 minutes to find out what happens next.

I live in Cromer in East Anglia so have seen your old boat line btw .. :)
 
I've also heard that peeing them out is as painful as child birth according to some women who've endured both. Sad ...
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Women have something like a 2 inch long urethra... I think for guys it's like 7 inches.
 
I don't have the book on hand to quote, but in the Author's Note in Piers Anthony's "On A Pale Horse", he goes into his own experience with a nasty little stone.

I have them too, and reading his account always makes me smile.
 
Drink plenty of water.
My Dad once had a kidney stone back in the 70s. The doc came to the house and injected him with something to knock him out. When he finally woke the next day, the kidney stone had passed.
 
Thanks and I have been drinking lots more water since it started. I've been through all the tests and am off to hospital on the 10th for a face to face chat about the options. I could have a sonic blast style treatment but that doesn't always work and my doc told me yesterday there's more in my right kidney than they first thought. I'm hoping for key hole surgery. Apparently the relief is almost instant once they're gone.
 
At least they don't have to operate 'old school' any more.....

That's a no-anaesthetic-cut-through-the-perineum by the way :shock:
 
Didn't Samuel Pepys have that operation, and live to tell the tale?

Anyway, I'm waiting for someone to advise the oil-and-lemon juice stone-dissolving treatment. :lol:

Whatever treatment you get, Swifty, it does seem that you'll be feeling better right away. That'll be awesome.

Been there - I had a painful condition for quite a few years which took forever to diagnose, tried all sorts to no avail. I think the doctors thought I was making it up for attention.

When it was eventually pinned down and treated I couldn't BELIEVE how suddenly the pain went away, and wondered how the flip I'd put up with it for so long. :D

You'll have that too. It'll be a great day. 8)
 
Cheers CarlosTheDJ and esgargot1 ... I've read about that lemon juice thing but don't think I want to drink pure lemon juice ...

Sorry you had to go through that for so long escargot1 .... that must have been dreadfull for you. I also get that throwing up thing the rynner2 mentioned in his early post ... it's been pretty sporadic and only on some mornings but I had to dart to the staff loo last night and warn the staff. One of them ordered me to go home and my Boss agreed and drove me home. I've asked permission to call in sick today with the offer that I'll come in if they get too busy tonight. My Boss's sister was a little paranoid that I was throwing sickies so I took all my hospital correspondence in to show her yesterday and she was very kind about it. I don't want to lose another job, my management are great and the staff that work for me enthusiastic. Bring on the surgery.
 
That sounds like a good place to work. :D

My boss was good about my having to go home ill one day, after which I got a diagnosis and was soon sorted. Had 6 weeks off work then came back fighting fit.

That's all over now. Soon the pain will be in the past for you too. :D
 
There's a 50% chance I'll get kidney stones again apparently ... funnily enough, they've never stopped me pissing apart from one time when my nob went like a hose pipe that had been stood on and then a stone suddenly shot out of the end like it had just sneezed .. not very fortean I admit although they're the same colour as those Chinese eye crystals.

akidneystone.jpg
 
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In the 19th century, to break a stone from their bladder, men had to pass a nail through their penis and then use a hammer to break it into pieces small enough to pass through their urethra. The was performed without anesthesia until around 1846.


akidneystones.jpg
 
Swifty said:
my nob went like a hose pipe that had been stood on and then a stone suddenly shot out of the end like it had just sneezed .. not very fortean I admit although they're the same colour as those Chinese eye crystals.
Click to expand...

So it was like a Chinese eye popping out of your...
I see.
 
Swifty said:
In the 19th century, to break a stone from their bladder, men had to pass a nail through their penis and then use a hammer to break it into pieces small enough to pass through their urethra. The was performed without anesthesia until around 1846.


View attachment 16836
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Didn't Samuel Pepys have to have a stone dealt with? If I'm remembering correctly he wrote about it in the diary and kept the stone to show to people!

The long winter evenings must have just flown by!
 
Frideswide said:
Didn't Samuel Pepys have to have a stone dealt with? If I'm remembering correctly he wrote about it in the diary and kept the stone to show to people!

The long winter evenings must have just flown by!
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So I've read. I sent the remains of mine to my Dad.
 
Swifty said:
In the 19th century, to break a stone from their bladder, men had to pass a nail through their penis and then use a hammer to break it into pieces small enough to pass through their urethra. The was performed without anesthesia until around 1846.
Click to expand...
Joking aside having a kidney stone is the most painful experience you could possibly imagine (childbirth - pah that's self inflicted). The method of removal is even worse. Had a few meself and yes I would wish it on my worse enemy.
 
May have mentioned this before -
A male teenage relation by marriage had nasty symptoms over several years, mainly pain and blood in the urine. A bladder stone was eventually diagnosed and he had an operation to remove it.

I saw the stone. It was calcium, dirty-white and flat, with a rough surface and edges, looking like cement, and nearly the size of the palm of my hand.
No wonder he was grumpy!

The stone was sent for analysis and was found to contain a short length of wire. The young man's mother insisted that he must have swallowed it when he fell in a pond as a child. Yeah, right. I reckon he'd stuck something up there, as boys sometimes do. It hadn't come out and the stone had formed around it.
 
As a sufferer of Crohn disease for over 40 years, I was told by an eminent renal specialist that I would continue getting kidney stones as Crohns sufferers can not properly digest oxalates which end up forming the stones.
He advised me to give up Beroca (hangover cure) due to the calcium within and any multivitamins that contain calcium. I also had to avoid cheese which I was consuming in industrial quantities during that period.
He further advised me to avoid any food or booze from the Rhine Valley; apparently the soil in the Rhine Valley is very high in oxalates and German renal doctors are subsequently the world experts on stones (his words not mine)
I have followed his advice and having previously passed one stone, had two extracted (ouch, eyes begin watering) and having one super king broken up in the kidney and sucked out through a hole in my back, I have not had a recurrence in about 8 years.
My thoughts remain with fellow sufferers; a nurse in the unit I was treated had two children and had experienced 2 very painful stone and stated she would rather go through childbirth again than have another stone.
By the way, the remedy sometimes outlined on the web involving the eating of pounds of raw asparagus washed down with pints of Coca Cola is apparently a load of bollocks.

T63
 
Tempest63 said:
As a sufferer of Crohn disease for over 40 years, I was told by an eminent renal specialist that I would continue getting kidney stones as Crohns sufferers can not properly digest oxalates which end up forming the stones.
He advised me to give up Beroca (hangover cure) due to the calcium within and any multivitamins that contain calcium. I also had to avoid cheese which I was consuming in industrial quantities during that period.
He further advised me to avoid any food or booze from the Rhine Valley; apparently the soil in the Rhine Valley is very high in oxalates and German renal doctors are subsequently the world experts on stones (his words not mine)
I have followed his advice and having previously passed one stone, had two extracted (ouch, eyes begin watering) and having one super king broken up in the kidney and sucked out through a hole in my back, I have not had a recurrence in about 8 years.
My thoughts remain with fellow sufferers; a nurse in the unit I was treated had two children and had experienced 2 very painful stone and stated she would rather go through childbirth again than have another stone.
By the way, the remedy sometimes outlined on the web involving the eating of pounds of raw asparagus washed down with pints of Coca Cola is apparently a load of bollocks.

T63
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Now you've set me thinking. No one has ever mentioned to me the link between Crohn and stone formation. I will take this up with my GP at my next visit. I gave up booze totally about 6 years ago and massively cut down on cheese (my favourite) consumption and have had no recurrence either.
 
PeteS said:
Now you've set me thinking. No one has ever mentioned to me the link between Crohn and stone formation. I will take this up with my GP at my next visit. I gave up booze totally about 6 years ago and massively cut down on cheese (my favourite) consumption and have had no recurrence either.
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Henry Lewi was the consultant who sorted out my stones and wrote papers on the relationship between Crohns sufferers and the problems we have with oxalates. Your GP may be able to track down the research.
 
Frideswide said:
Didn't Samuel Pepys have to have a stone dealt with? If I'm remembering correctly he wrote about it in the diary and kept the stone to show to people!
Click to expand...

“Monday 26 March 1660

This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut of the stone at Mrs. Turner’s in Salisbury Court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house...”

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/03/26/

A%20treatise%20of%20lithotomy%2C%201683%20%28Wellcome%20Library%29.jpg


“Patients would lie on a table or a specially designed chair, and a small incision (about three inches) was made at the neck of the bladder by going through the perineum. Forceps were inserted to grasp and remove the stone. Surgeons could also use something called a ‘scoop extractor’ – which is about as pleasant as it sounds – to take out the offending mass. Aftercare did not consist of stitches – rather, surgeons at the time usually believed in letting the wound heal naturally with just a dressing to protect it.

The operation was a great success – the stone was extracted much to the marvel of Pepys and Hollier’s team who allegedly remarked that it was the size of a tennis ball!”

https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/removing-bladder-stone-size-tennis-ball

maximus otter
 
maximus otter said:
“Monday 26 March 1660

This day it is two years since it pleased God that I was cut of the stone at Mrs. Turner’s in Salisbury Court. And did resolve while I live to keep it a festival, as I did the last year at my house...”

https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1660/03/26/

A%20treatise%20of%20lithotomy%2C%201683%20%28Wellcome%20Library%29.jpg


“Patients would lie on a table or a specially designed chair, and a small incision (about three inches) was made at the neck of the bladder by going through the perineum. Forceps were inserted to grasp and remove the stone. Surgeons could also use something called a ‘scoop extractor’ – which is about as pleasant as it sounds – to take out the offending mass. Aftercare did not consist of stitches – rather, surgeons at the time usually believed in letting the wound heal naturally with just a dressing to protect it.

The operation was a great success – the stone was extracted much to the marvel of Pepys and Hollier’s team who allegedly remarked that it was the size of a tennis ball!”

https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/behind-the-scenes/blog/removing-bladder-stone-size-tennis-ball

maximus otter
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Makes your eyes water reading that.
 
PeteS said:
Makes your eyes water reading that.
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I attempted to return to a previous workplace with my last kidney stones .. I was trying to be heroic and managed it for a bit, the first problem was when I dropped a tray of drinks because I was shaking so hard, the young women who were supposed to collect drinks were too busy chatting and doing fuck all instead and it would have been sexist or something of me to not do the job for them. I had to lie down in a field nearby on my break times they were hurting that much. I didn't enjoy it.
 
Swifty said:
I attempted to return to a previous workplace with my last kidney stones .. I was trying to be heroic and managed it for a bit, the first problem was when I dropped a tray of drinks because I was shaking so hard, the young women who were supposed to collect drinks were too busy chatting and doing fuck all instead and it would have been sexist or something of me to not do the job for them. I had to lie down in a field nearby on my break times they were hurting that much. I didn't enjoy it.
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I don't think you can explain to anyone who hasn't suffered from stones, how unimaginably painful they are.
 
PeteS said:
I don't think you can explain to anyone who hasn't suffered from stones, how unimaginably painful they are.
Click to expand...
I tried to on here once and someone reasonably made the point "More painful than having your arm ripped off?" .. I've never had an arm ripped off and given the choice between the two, I'd go for kidney stones again.

A bloke I know on our street had kidney stones once, he told me that for him, the pain was worse than when he fell off a ladder and broke his pelvis. I've certainly never felt pain like that before I had them, I had to begrudgingly respect it for kicking my arse so hard. I collapsed on my living room floor after returning from treatment at the N&N hospital, had to crawl across the floor to dial 111, called the Mrs at work to tell her an ambulance was coming, she heroically ran home from her work and she had a broken toe at the time (possibly the most romantic thing anyone's ever done for me) ..

By the time she got home, my head was dripping as fast as a bastard, I asked her to get me a bucket to puke in ... the waves of pain were coming so fast I would describe it as someone attaching a wooden spoon to every spoke on a bicycle wheel and then peddling so each spoon hit my bollocks, even my ears and fingers hurt.

The advice on the official NHS website was ".. don't be ashamed if you have to scream.", I was determined not to do that so I kept saying "please stop please stop please stop please stop ..." over and over. I remember thinking but not saying "I'm Johnny Knoxville and this is the kidney stone challenge!" to try and cheer myself up slightly. They fucking hurt would be the best way to describe it to people IMO.
 
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