…other than kidney stones. If I don’t lighten up, everybody is going to think I have an unnatural obsession with them. We don’t need to talk about kidney stones anyway. I’m feeling much better. The pain level from my kidney stent has fallen back to a discomfort level; easily managed with Aleve. What a disappointing development. Now I no longer have an excuse to sit in a hot bath enjoying narcotics and a beer, playing Sudoku on the iPad. I didn’t even get the chance for it to become a habit.
There is something about kidney stones I don’t understand though. All this time I’ve been telling people that kidney stone pain is caused by the sharp-edged stone moving through the kidney and ureter. The pain starts and stops; the stone starts and stops; it all makes sense. The urologist tells me I’m wrong though. He says it doesn’t hurt when the stone moves; the acute pain is caused by the stone blocking flow from the kidney. The increased pressure on the kidney is what causes the pain.
He must be right, after all he’s the urologist, but it just doesn’t seem like a complete explanation. Kidney stone pain comes on suddenly, then goes away suddenly. It can last for just a few minutes at a time or it can last for hours. It cycles on and off as many times as it wants. Why does the pain suddenly start? Pressure on the kidney. Why does it suddenly stop? The kidney gets desensitized and stops hurting. But after the pain has started, then stopped, and the kidney is desensitized, why does the pain start again? Then my kidney was totally blocked for weeks and the pain never started again. It just doesn’t quite work for me.
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