Oh man what a crappy labor day! You want to know why because I was in labor and I am a dude!
The story:
I was working out on a job site when all of sudden I started having pain in my stomach. I thought it was from a big mac I ate that wasn’t settling right with me. But then it started to really hurt and then I knew what it was. A DAMN kidney stone. I used the word “DAMN” because if anything should be in Hell besides the Devil and his demons it is that freakin little stone that made me feel like I was in Hell.
Well I knew I needed pain pills fast and luckily my nephew had some left over so I took two hydrocodones whole and smashed one and drank it to make it work faster. Well that worked for a little while then it started killing me again. And I was out of pain pills so off to the dreaded emergency room (been there done that - 3rd kidney stone yes, I’m cursed I guess).
That’s right the emegency room where they make you suffer in agony while they calmly take your insurance information. Where they take your temperature and blood pressure and all the other crap so they can charge you more while you need something to kill the PAIN! I usually do not cuss but I was couldn’t I kept saying get me some F’ING MORPHINE NOW! Well, after causing a ton of commotion(people were even starting to tell the stupid nurse to give me something just to shut me up) and they finally gave me something in my IV(of course they missed my vein in my hand with those 18 gauge needles twice first).
And then I wake with a tube that goes from my kidney to my bladder called a stint(to relieve the pressure). Well there is some green “string” coming out of my “thing” that is taped to my leg and there are blood stains all over my underwear. Now I say to myself I know how a woman feels and I don’t like it! A side note to women if I had to go though this every month like y’all do, when y’all get to Heaven if I was you I would slug Eve right in stomach for eating that damn apple.
Back to the story they tell me I need to get lyprotized(I don’t even care if I spelled that right stupid thing). Because they wheel you out to a truck and lay you on a plexiglass bed and start torturing you with electric shock waves in your back for an hour. The funny thing is they are really proud of this stupid machine they even had the nerve to give me a FREAKIN T shirt. Then they wheel you back out and charge you 6 to 8 thousand dollars for that bit of S&M fun. And the worse part it still didn’t break up that damn little stone.
So it has been a week of dealing with pain like Tom Hanks did in “The Green Mile” every time I pee.(I am even willing to have some big black dude grab my nuts if it will help at this point) And still I haven’t passed the stone. If that is the best that doctors can come up with to help people with kidney stones after 10 years of college and charging you 10 grand, then bring back the witch doctors. You doctors with PH’D’s aren’t as smart as you think.
Some things in life still aren’t easy. The stone pulverizers DO work most of the time, and often DO provide great relief to sufferers like yourself. You may just be one of the “statistics” that fell on the wrong side of the graph. Unfortunate, but true perhaps.
Also, take comfort that it is likely your doctor is just as bothered as you are that the treatment failed. Not as physically bothered, but likely very concerned.
And it could be worse - you could be recovering from surgery to remove the stone, which would not be pleasant.
Welcome back, WB, I thought we’d scared you off with our latest round of questions and answers over in GREAT DEBATES.
Have you spoken to your doctor about what’s CAUSING the kidney stones? Do you need to drink more water or stop consuming whatever it is that’s causing them to form?
I’m with Freyr - I don’t think Big Macs are good for preventing kidney stones. Find out what you should be eating so you don’t get a fourth kidney stone and follow that advice.
Doctors aren’t gods, dude, sometimes you have to suffer. We’ve all been there - hope you feel better soon.
Have you told your doctor that it didn’t work? If it’s really hurting that badly, they should probably try something else. At worst you should have some good pain drugs.
Oh, and for Halloween last year, my costume was a witch hat and full makeup, shirt, tie, khakis, white coat, and stethoscope. Yep, I was a Witch Doctor.
Dr. J
(Note: Nothing in any of my posts should ever be taken as qualified medical advice.)
Sound’s like you hate lawyers or at least worried about the blood suckers suing you. Isn’t that a shame that you have to even put disclaimers on message boards. Our legal sytem bites!
Sorry for my rant on lawyers, I was hoping you(Dr. J) would respond to this post. Man, I hurt. I can’t work out(this really bites because I am trying to get big by this coming spring.) and everytime I have tried to lift heavy weights my urine goes red which is not good is it? Also I just got my boat back after it being broke down for 8 weeks of the summer and I don’t feel like I can wakeboard because of this sucker and that stint being in me. My doctor told me not to.
So I have a few questions for ya(and no I won’t sue you and to show you I won’t how about this as proof. Some piece crap pit bull almost took my wife’s eye out and I didn’t sue dog owner although I do want to kill his dog in a most hanis(sp) way). That’s how much I hate the legal system and lawyers.
Anyway here are the questions?
If it doesn’t come out and I have to get surgury, what king of procedure is it? Inotherwords where do they cut me and how do they get the stone out?
After that surgury how long is the recovery time? Inotherwords how long will it be until I can lift heavy I mean heavy weight and wakeboard again?
I really miss wakeboarding and the warm weather is fixing to go away(while willing to wetsuit to keep wakeboarding in the winter its just not as fun if you know what I mean.)
Thanks to everybody else that gave me empathy or should I say sympathy.
I almost forgot which pain drugs are the best? For some reason they don’t want to give me percadan(sp) or demerol because they say it is a narcotic or something and they get hassled by the gov’t if they prescribe those. What’s up with that? I really don’t like lawyers or at least plaintiff ones.
The clearest memory I have of my one (and mercifully brief) kidney stone experience is of rocking back and forth in my bed in the ER and muttering a stream of profanities (for some reason, both actions lessened the pain) when, from behind the curtain surrounding the bed to the left, came a clear child’s voice, “Mommy, why is that man saying bad words?”
I didn’t stop. I figgered I was helping the kid’s education.
Sua
How long did you wait until they gave you a shot? A long time I bet. If it wasn’t for some scum sucking lawyer that would sue me, I think I would open an emergency room that give you pain medication first before you have to go through all the rigamoroe(I think that is the way you spell it?).I would be RICH!!!
Also I cussed too when I was in pain why is that? What makes you cuss when you are in pain? I think I am going to start a tread on that.
Bill, I was a bit “lucky” - my kidney stone hit me at around 3:00 A.M., and I was in the suburbs, so the ER was basically empty. It still took entirely too long to get a pain shot, as they went through the whole insurance rigamorale. One of the scariest parts of the whole thing was when they injected me with a dye so they could x-ray me. The dye sent a coursing pseud-burning sensation (can’t really describe it) through my veins.
The final blow came afterwards. My HMO had told me to go to their clinic in downtown DC. There was no way I was going to drive 20-odd miles in the pain I was in, so I went to the local ER. The HMO, of course, refused to pay.
Sua
YOU THINK YOU HAVE IT BAD?!! February 1999. I started having really bad pains in my stomach area. So I went to the doctor. For the next oh 3-5 weeks I was making visits to them to try and figure out what was wrong. I STILL don’t Have a CLUE what was causing the pain. And to thus make my situation bad, 1998 I did something to my right wrist. “Oh it’s just hurt, that’s all.” “It’ll be better in a couple of weeks.” Couple of years is more like it. The stupid thing hurts me all the time. Any doctor have any advice about these two things?
Good luck, Bill. Remember, either trust the doctors completely or don’t bother going to them. When they give you advice, take it. Don’t ever pretend that you know more than they. While on rare occasion it may be true, the vast majority of the time you’re only going to harm yourself by not following doctor’s orders.
Also, Doc J doesn’t put the disclaimer because of the mythical vampire lawyer. He does it so people won’t take his advice and then sue him if it doesn’t work. The lawyers aren’t the culprits–foolish people who want something for nothing are.
And finally, are you seriously wondering why your doctor won’t prescribe highly addictive narcotis? I assure you, it’s not a conspiracy of lawyers there, either.
Again, good luck. Though it doesn’t feel like it, pain is ephemeral–it will end. This stone, too, shall pass.
As far as the narcotics go. This is not bull it is true. Doctors have to fill some form because they made percodan and demoral a type III narcotic or something like that. So doctors are more weary about prescribing those because of lawsuits.
And I think that is just a shame that because of some stupid lawsuits(or stupid people that file em as you said) people have to live in more pain. That is just plain ridiculous. There should be massive tort reform or better yet just outlaw plaintiff lawyers. Or at least put a 2 bag limit season on them.
Really, I’m not all that concerned with lawsuits, although it is a thought I keep in the back of my mind. I would just hate to be giving out bad advice that people take seriously. (I am two years from an MD, after all.) At least at school, if I tell someone something totally off the wall, the attending or resident comes in to clean up after me.
Anyway, the most common surgical treatment involves having a scope run up your urinary tract (the “wrong way”), with a little probe that breaks up and pulls out the stone. Takes less than an hour, you go home the same day, and you need about a day to get over the anesthesia. It’s kind of a last resort, since 95% of stones either pass on their own or come out with the lithotripsy. (I haven’t seen one of these yet, so I’m not sure of the specifics, but that’s what I understand from my time in the clinic. I’ll probably see one tomorrow.)
Pain, narcotics, etc.–the trouble with stone pain is that there is often little to be done about it. You can never say what’s going to work for a given person.
The bottom line–go back to your urologist, who should be following up soon anyway. Tell him just what you told us (although you might leave out the “witch doctors” part), and he should be able to take care of you. Very little medicine gets accomplished in one visit.
Dr. J
PS: Doctors have to fill in special forms and prescriptions to prescribe Schedule II drugs, which include most of the hard-core pain drugs. (Schedule I drugs are the totally illegal ones.) It still isn’t prohibitively hard. I’d hesitantly say that you could probably get in more trouble, malpractice-wise, by not prescribing pain drugs to someone who needs them than you would giving them to someone who doesn’t. Judicious use of addicitive pain meds is not a legal judgement, but a sound clinical one.
Now here is where I can give you some advice on something I know about being sued that is. You will care after you get sued. And I am sorry to say but doctors are one of the main targets on the scumsucking plaintiff attorney’s crosshair.
Its up to high for that procedure Dr. J. So what do they do when it is up that high?
It might be neat for you to see one but believe me you don’t want to have it done(I have been lithotripsied twice) that sucker hurts. I think they give a general anethiesa(sp) for that procedure. I like to be knocked totally out. I am a pain wuss.
Don’t get me wrong Dr. J I like doctors. I think y’all are great except for your prices but heck if I went to school that long I would charge alot too. I think doctors actually help people and care about people. Lawyers except for a very few only care about themselves.
I knew it was something like that 2 3 close enough. But why do they have to fill them out in the first place? They use to not have to.
