Medical update

I was being treated for recurrent hemorrhoids for a long time. It turned out to be prostatitis. Or so they say. I was put on a short course of strong antibiotics, followed by a long course interspersed with a 10 day course of really strong antibiotics which they injected into me post-dialysis (thankfully, those don't hurt as they use the needles already inside for the dialysis).

Where are we? Not an inch ahead.

The pain after going for a few days is back. Probably as bad as before. I say "Probably" because you can't measure pain, can you? Its not like the stock market index. You don't say the pain was 234 yesterday. Today its better, its around 200! Its all about perception. If you've had a tough day at work, the pain seems worse. If you've spent an hour with a pretty girl at a coffee shop, it seems less.

So, I went to the docs - wait a minute - why docs? Well, when your base problem is a nephrology problem, you almost always see "docs" rather than one "doc". That's because your neph has to sign off pretty much anything any other doc says.

So I went to the doc for prostatitis who asked me to stop the antibiotic and then get a culture done to identify the correct bacterium. "Well, doc", I wanted to say, "isn't it a little late in the day to be identifying the bacterium?" I controlled myself. I have had a cocktail of really strong antibiotics for about 2 months now and don't even get me started on the pain part of it. And they want to identify the bacterium now? Anyway, better late than never, I thought and fixed up the date and time of the identification.

I went back to my neph who asked that simultaneously we might as well also check for Tuberculosis. Sure. Might as well.

So, this morning, I gave a sample to test for the bacterium and Tuberculosis. The results are expected on Saturday after which I meet with the docs again to decide on the future course of action.

An interesting thing is the Tuberculosis report is going to take 2 whole months! They will give a preliminary report on Saturday but the final report is going to take two months. Of what use is a report that comes after two months in a condition like this?

In the meantime, I have been adding a Sodium Phosphate solution to my dialysate to help prop up my low Phosphorus. This has a side effect. It is increasing my Sodium which is causing increased Blood pressure and a heavy head. So, I don't know what to do. I will be checking my Phosphorus level tomorrow after dialysis to see if this is helping.

My PTH which had crossed 1000 a couple of months back is now at 72, thanks to a new drug called Cinacalcet. I started off with 30 mg per day for two weeks followed by 60 mg per day for 2 weeks. 72 is too low. So, I did not take any cinacalcet for a couple of weeks and am now on 30 mg every alternate day.

There's never a dull day with CKD!

Comments

Sai Manohar said…
Even I had a Tb culture done for some synovial fluid in my leg( infected fluid) that gave me a lot of pain.That report took 2 months + and It was negative.