Stoned again! Redux: living with kidney stones (0070)

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When it rains, it pours. Right after I had my stroke, I went to the doctor about a pain in my back on the right side. My family doctor sent me to a specialist. The specialist decided that I had kidney stones.

I have had kidney stones before. Now for those of you who are uneducated, there are two distinct types of kidney stones. The most common kind is caused by calcium buildup to the kidney the second, and by far more rare, is the uric acids Crystal buildup in the kidney resulting from a condition called gout. the symptoms are similar, but the treatments are completely different. For uric acid crystals, they pump you up with fluids and wait. The stone resolves itself. Usually. With calcium-based kidney stones, they generally do a process called lithotripsy where they use ultrasonic vibrations to smash the stone to sand. You then eliminate it naturally, well, sort of naturally. Mistake number one. I have a history of gout. I told the doctor that. Even so, he still recommended lithotripsy. That's what happens when you go to a surgeon. He recommends what he knows.

I talked to a number of people about lithotripsy. I talked to both doctors and patients. Basically, the cure can be worse than the disease. Unless your stones are killing you, don't do it. Based on that advice, I didn't. And, of course, the doctor was not happy. However, realizing that the stones resulted of the gout, the doctor prescribed allopurinol, which is fine. However, with a list of all my meds in his hands, he prescribed potassium citrate. Other than the fact that that drug interacts with every other medication I was taking, and which the doctor had on his list, it was fine.

Well, it nearly killed me. It crashed my blood pressure. Everybody asked me what he prescribe. Now I'm debating whether to sue over. I probably won't. Bad karma.