Thread by @DrJessMRCVS

4 days since I was diagnosed with a kidney stone stuck in my ureter and I have experienced such a wide range of responses from health professionals. In many ways I wish a vet was in charge of my care. A thread:

1/ turned up at a&e on Sunday morning in agonising pain which started at 6:30am. The triage nurse I saw told me “you can stop crying now” and walked off leaving me without pain relief. Eventually after begging I received a small dose of oral codeine…

2/ proceeded to spend the next 3-4 hours crying and unable to sit still in the waiting room due to renal colic I eventually saw a lovely doctor who thought it was unlikely I had a stone on account of me being a 24yo female, but 10 minutes later when the next wave of uncontrolled

3/ pain left me writhing on the bed he confirmed I did appear to have renal colic and prescribed oramorph and IV paracetamol, followed by a CT scan when I could stay still enough. It confirmed a 5.6mm mid-ureteric stone and a 3mm calculus still in my renal calyx…

4/ was admitted for pain relief. Got a bed at 10:30pm that night. Each time I asked for pain relief I was given a disbelieving look of “can’t you wait” until they looked at my notes and saw I had a stone…

5/ it has really highlighted to me how difficult people seem to find it to simply believe your pain and take it at face value when they can’t see the physical cause. I’m so thankful they were able to identify a physical cause..

6/ because I have no doubt I would have been left in agony with my pain continuing to be disbelieved if I couldn’t. It’s a stark contrast to veterinary medicine where an animal presents vocalising in acute pain and the first thing we do is give pain relief… #kidneystone #vetmed

7/ I was also already consciously avoiding mentioning any mental health issues for fear my pain would be labelled “psychosomatic”… as a young female this was likely enough as it is. I wonder how many of us are repeatedly left traumatised from having our pain disbelieved #trauma

8/ as if to emphasise my previous concerns the urologist I met the next day hadn’t even looked at the results of the CT scan before meeting me. He proceeded to look at them in front of me (having already told me I was fine and could go home),..

9/ the hydronephrosis appeared to be a surprise to him, as did the number and size of my stones. He was with me a few minutes and said they would wait for it to pass and if it didn’t then would rescan and consider surgery in 4-6 weeks…

9/ he said the stone was small and since I am female it should be fine to pass due to my shorter urethra (note - the stone is in my URETER). I asked about kidney damage as the ED doc said that after 1-2 weeks this would be a concern. The urologists response?

11/ “meh, you’re young and healthy, you have 2 kidneys” as he laughed and walked away having spent about 5 minutes with me in total.

(Also yes I accidentally wrote two 9’s)

For those asking - this is based in the UK.