In March of this year i started getting some awful symptoms after a flight. Horrific taste in my mouth, dry skin, aches and pains in all my joints, nausea, erratic urination frequency, pain after urinating in left flank.
I am a digital nomad and has just arrived in Georgia (country) at the time. I let the symptoms go on for about 2 weeks, but after a bit of googling i realised: Hole feck, are my kidneys failing? Terrified i immediately flew back to the UK and went straight to a GP, only to be reminded of how terrible the GPs in the UK are. One blood test was done and kidney function was mildly down from previous but still within normal range, and at that moment the GP basically dumped me. Told me my kidneys were clear and it couldn't be a kidney stone. I attempted to get another appointment 2 additional times over the course of 6 weeks, trying to figure what the problem was as the symptoms had hardly dissipated, but was basically politely told to go away. During this 6 weeks i signed up to sanctioned suicide, as i had long been passively suicidal, but now with the fear that i had some kind of kidney problem that would take away my future i really started to think, ok my life is now completely pointless.
Anyway, after being dismissed by the doctor on the 3rd occasion i decided to take a more comprehensive private blood test. And it came back great, kidney function was back to being excellent, and i feeling better though far from symptom free. I concluded what i had was probably reflux along with possibly a brief UTI which had passed by itself. So i figured ok i'm not dying, i will go traveling again to a cheap country (Bosnia) and if it flares up again i can at least get cheap private care. I arrived in Sarajevo and for the first few weeks the symptoms continue to decline and i was happy, but then suddenly they flared up again. This time it took me about a week to bring the courage up to get more tests, but i did and they kidney function was down again, but still ok. With this result i sought out an ultrasound, and they immediately found a kidney stone. (Well done to my GP telling me i couldn't have a kidney stone twice). This kind of explained most of the symptoms, but not everything matched, but at least i had something that might fix it now. So i was keen to get it out to see if that would make me feel normal again.
I contacted my GP from abroad, but they refused to speak to me from abroad. So i researched the procedure for the NHS. Sadly my conclusions was it could take up to a year to get it removed. There is simply no way i could last another year with this worry, so i immeidiately looked at where i could get it done privately abroad even thought i was absoluteyl skint at this stage due to a client that ripped me off earlier in the year, and generally not doing much work this year because i was in a constnat state of worrying if i was going to die or not. I scraped every penny i could find and travelled to Turkey and spent 3,000 GBP on getting it removed.
Just last week i had the operation, but as i came out of it i could feel the stone was still there and now i had a stent. I immediately asked the doctor what happened, he said i had a scar in my uterer (the tube that comes out the kidney) that was heavily restricting draining and he couldn't get the laser used to destroy the stone into the kidney. In fact this poor draining is what caused the stone and all symptoms - he put a stent in my uterer to force it open.
So a lot of the stympoms have finally gone now, though not completely. But my word the stent is unpleasant, and i shall have to have it continouslly from now on unless i get additional surgery which may not be successful.
I am in a lot of discomfort now and. Part of the problem you see is i have a very bad lower back, i have scoliosis and loss of lumber. It requires constant maintenance and i've expended endless hours into trying to ameloirate it over there years with various exercises and techniques and it's likely one of these technqiues that has caused the strain and scarring of the uterer. In fact now i know what the problem is i can feel how the scar is strained as i exert myself. I'm not sure how this is going to work now, i will have to stop doing these exercise and just feel rough all the time due to my back.
So i'm not dying, which is great, but i sure feel past it now. And having lost so much during COVID (relationship, savings, great job) and approaching 40 now i really feel like my i am finished. I have so little enthusiasm for life now and this rollercoaster of health scare has destroyed my mental health even further. I am also about 2k in debt.
But I guess my suicide levels are down from an 8/10 back to a "resasses in 6 months time" 3/10 for now.
One thing i have realised though is i was like to get a stash of N to have around should i ever have enough in the future. So a trip to Peru will hopefully be on cards.
And that's my story...
I am a digital nomad and has just arrived in Georgia (country) at the time. I let the symptoms go on for about 2 weeks, but after a bit of googling i realised: Hole feck, are my kidneys failing? Terrified i immediately flew back to the UK and went straight to a GP, only to be reminded of how terrible the GPs in the UK are. One blood test was done and kidney function was mildly down from previous but still within normal range, and at that moment the GP basically dumped me. Told me my kidneys were clear and it couldn't be a kidney stone. I attempted to get another appointment 2 additional times over the course of 6 weeks, trying to figure what the problem was as the symptoms had hardly dissipated, but was basically politely told to go away. During this 6 weeks i signed up to sanctioned suicide, as i had long been passively suicidal, but now with the fear that i had some kind of kidney problem that would take away my future i really started to think, ok my life is now completely pointless.
Anyway, after being dismissed by the doctor on the 3rd occasion i decided to take a more comprehensive private blood test. And it came back great, kidney function was back to being excellent, and i feeling better though far from symptom free. I concluded what i had was probably reflux along with possibly a brief UTI which had passed by itself. So i figured ok i'm not dying, i will go traveling again to a cheap country (Bosnia) and if it flares up again i can at least get cheap private care. I arrived in Sarajevo and for the first few weeks the symptoms continue to decline and i was happy, but then suddenly they flared up again. This time it took me about a week to bring the courage up to get more tests, but i did and they kidney function was down again, but still ok. With this result i sought out an ultrasound, and they immediately found a kidney stone. (Well done to my GP telling me i couldn't have a kidney stone twice). This kind of explained most of the symptoms, but not everything matched, but at least i had something that might fix it now. So i was keen to get it out to see if that would make me feel normal again.
I contacted my GP from abroad, but they refused to speak to me from abroad. So i researched the procedure for the NHS. Sadly my conclusions was it could take up to a year to get it removed. There is simply no way i could last another year with this worry, so i immeidiately looked at where i could get it done privately abroad even thought i was absoluteyl skint at this stage due to a client that ripped me off earlier in the year, and generally not doing much work this year because i was in a constnat state of worrying if i was going to die or not. I scraped every penny i could find and travelled to Turkey and spent 3,000 GBP on getting it removed.
Just last week i had the operation, but as i came out of it i could feel the stone was still there and now i had a stent. I immediately asked the doctor what happened, he said i had a scar in my uterer (the tube that comes out the kidney) that was heavily restricting draining and he couldn't get the laser used to destroy the stone into the kidney. In fact this poor draining is what caused the stone and all symptoms - he put a stent in my uterer to force it open.
So a lot of the stympoms have finally gone now, though not completely. But my word the stent is unpleasant, and i shall have to have it continouslly from now on unless i get additional surgery which may not be successful.
I am in a lot of discomfort now and. Part of the problem you see is i have a very bad lower back, i have scoliosis and loss of lumber. It requires constant maintenance and i've expended endless hours into trying to ameloirate it over there years with various exercises and techniques and it's likely one of these technqiues that has caused the strain and scarring of the uterer. In fact now i know what the problem is i can feel how the scar is strained as i exert myself. I'm not sure how this is going to work now, i will have to stop doing these exercise and just feel rough all the time due to my back.
So i'm not dying, which is great, but i sure feel past it now. And having lost so much during COVID (relationship, savings, great job) and approaching 40 now i really feel like my i am finished. I have so little enthusiasm for life now and this rollercoaster of health scare has destroyed my mental health even further. I am also about 2k in debt.
But I guess my suicide levels are down from an 8/10 back to a "resasses in 6 months time" 3/10 for now.
One thing i have realised though is i was like to get a stash of N to have around should i ever have enough in the future. So a trip to Peru will hopefully be on cards.
And that's my story...
