I'm pretty sure I had my first kidney stone this weekend, which also means this weekend went nothing like it was planned. The presentation was classic: sudden onset severe flank pain radiating into my pelvis, nausea without vomiting, clamminess without a fever, and urinary urgency. Of course, the pain started on my way home from work on Friday night, right after all the doctors' offices and urgent care centers had closed, and right before the start of shabbat.
I went through the differential: kidney stones, pyelo, appendicitis, hemorrhagic ovarian cysts, ovarian torsion.. but was very aware that the pain was primarily flank pain. I called my med school roommate to calm me down, talk through the differential, and come up with a plan. 800mg ibuprofen, hydrate as much as possible, use a heating pad, reevaluate in a few hours. The pain escalated but the heating pad made it bearable. Our shabbat dinner guests arrived. One guest encouraged me to call my PCP to talk to the on-call doc. It turns out my own doc was on-call, strongly felt that I was passing a stone, and advised I go to the ER for IV fluids, stronger pain meds, and a confirmatory CT scan.
A friend drove me to the ER. We waited an hour, in which the waiting room became increasingly filled with people who appeared to have all types of communicable germs. I couldn't sit comfortably or stand in one place and so I paced in the corner. I hadn't yet even been triaged. I wished I wasn't such an honest person, knowing that had I reported my chief complaint as chest pain + SOB, I would have been seen immediately. I freaked myself out about a CT, about exposing my ovaries to needless radiation. And so after an hour I checked myself out of the que and we left, knowing that either it was a stone and would declare itself or something would get significantly worse and I would be back.
The next 24 hours were a slow mix of adjusting the heat pad, re-dosing on NSAIDs, drinking as much as I possibly could, peeing, sleeping, and trying to read a book. Not how I had planned to spend shabbat. My urine turned cloudy a few hours after the pain began- furthering my suspicious that it was a kidney stone. And then, sometime last night, the pain stopped. It has left my body sore and exhausted, wondering if maybe I made it all up? That's the downside of not having a confirmatory scan or seeing a physical stone pass... now I always get to wonder if it was a stone or not. Really, could I have imagined all of the last 36 hours? And it is a pretty compelling story indeed... But, the true question is, would I believe a patient that came in and told me all of this?
I went through the differential: kidney stones, pyelo, appendicitis, hemorrhagic ovarian cysts, ovarian torsion.. but was very aware that the pain was primarily flank pain. I called my med school roommate to calm me down, talk through the differential, and come up with a plan. 800mg ibuprofen, hydrate as much as possible, use a heating pad, reevaluate in a few hours. The pain escalated but the heating pad made it bearable. Our shabbat dinner guests arrived. One guest encouraged me to call my PCP to talk to the on-call doc. It turns out my own doc was on-call, strongly felt that I was passing a stone, and advised I go to the ER for IV fluids, stronger pain meds, and a confirmatory CT scan.
A friend drove me to the ER. We waited an hour, in which the waiting room became increasingly filled with people who appeared to have all types of communicable germs. I couldn't sit comfortably or stand in one place and so I paced in the corner. I hadn't yet even been triaged. I wished I wasn't such an honest person, knowing that had I reported my chief complaint as chest pain + SOB, I would have been seen immediately. I freaked myself out about a CT, about exposing my ovaries to needless radiation. And so after an hour I checked myself out of the que and we left, knowing that either it was a stone and would declare itself or something would get significantly worse and I would be back.
The next 24 hours were a slow mix of adjusting the heat pad, re-dosing on NSAIDs, drinking as much as I possibly could, peeing, sleeping, and trying to read a book. Not how I had planned to spend shabbat. My urine turned cloudy a few hours after the pain began- furthering my suspicious that it was a kidney stone. And then, sometime last night, the pain stopped. It has left my body sore and exhausted, wondering if maybe I made it all up? That's the downside of not having a confirmatory scan or seeing a physical stone pass... now I always get to wonder if it was a stone or not. Really, could I have imagined all of the last 36 hours? And it is a pretty compelling story indeed... But, the true question is, would I believe a patient that came in and told me all of this?
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