Official Luthiers Forum!

We are closed for a week for vacations and on my first day off I have a kidney stone.... Woke up with terrible pain in my back and I knew immediately what it was. This is stone 15 for me that I know of.

In the past some have required surgery and more recently I've been passing them on my own but not without a whole lot of hurtin going on.

Whew it came out a day later at home Sunday afternoon and after almost passing out in the process... I began to feel better immediately.

The ER where I went told me it was a small one, 3mm and they thought it would pass on it's own so they doped me up, gave me a script, told me to watch Bill Maher (my ER doc is a friend who knows me pretty well) and sent me home.

So here it is rather unimpressive and kind of amazing to think something this small can hurt that much.

As to how does it sound? Haven't tapped it yet or made a nut out of it....

Yet another reason to stay in harness and avoid intentional vacations entirely - there always seems to be a price to be paid which is seldom advertised up front. Interesting choice on the part of your physician to go with 'bad news/REALLY bad news' versus the more traditional 'good news/bad news' approach to explaining the treatment plan. While I enjoy a bit of 'Cassandra sez...' every now and again, Mr. Maher - even a well-baked Maher - is a bit too much reality infusion and too little sly humor these days to make the viewing experience truly enjoyable.

Finally, as Ms. Rose opined, some days are diamonds and some days are stones, but I don't believe I'd want to have to pass either without some liquid courage, so heed your provider's advice and stay well hydrated. Lately I've been adding that extra straw of rainwater to my medicinal-use-only whisky; doctor's orders and all that.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

I can sympathised, I've passed 2 now....

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I have a closet full of medicinal use only scotch that I saved up for 30 years for my retirement and then I lost interest and rarely have a drink now. But I sure thought about it yesterday.... it was pretty unpleasant. What a relief to be on the other side of it though.

I don't know why he told me to watch Maher either maybe yelling at the TV helps pass stones

Oh you know then Colin my sympathies to you! I can go a decade with no stones and then I have three in several months. Go figure.

If the composition is calcium carbonate based, you can cause this by forcing too much supplemental calcium carbonate, such as too many calcium pills, tums, etc. I mistakenly thought that I could improve my fingernail strength by taking pills and found out.

My wife gets them and it's never fun. The water and diet in our part of the country (Appalachian south) apparently make them way more common here than in other parts of the country. One trip to the ER with Jenny in agonizing pain, the ER nurse (who hailed from PA) said that she'd see maybe half a dozen cases a year up there, but sees that many in a day down here. We stopped drinking tapwater after her first stone. Ice Tea is apparently another culprit as is a high fat diet (according to the docs). We don't do either one of those, so the high mineral tap water is likely the cause. I'm sure my day is coming sometime. Hope not.

Dave

I feel for you Hesh. I've passed a few myself and kidney stones too. I'm not sure which was worse. In my experience, a couple of shot of whiskey helps the pain meds work better.Don't recommend it for everyone, but I did survive the 60s relatively unscathed.