It Makes my Blood Boil

I asked myself recently if I thought I'd ever run out of things to blog about.  Quite simply, no.  Not for a long time anyway.  Constantly I am getting inspiration from my own experiences, reading medical journals or other peoples blogs and with my stem cell transplant looming, my posts will become more of a diary.  But one source of material I find I recently use is what people talk about on the medical forums.


One topic that consistently comes up in the cystinuria forum is people with kidney stones being refused pain medication because they are being labeled as 'drug seekers'.  And that makes me angry.  If you've ever had a kidney stone you would know why.  They hurt.  They hurt a lot.  Being a man I cannot compare, but I'm told the pain is equivalent to child birth.


Now I get that kidney stones are an easy symptom for 'drug seekers' to mimic.  I get that people with chronic kidney pain may become addicted as a result.  But to leave people in that sort of pain is barbaric and unforgivable.  I will elaborate.


Nine out of ten times these people who suffer from cystinuria can prove they have a chronic kidney condition that gives them an insane amount of kidney stones.  Yet, ER and primary care doctors constantly refuse to treat their pain.  My point being that if you can prove you have a disorder like this you should be treated.  In my hey day, before I was receiving proper care for my kidney disease (And I freely admit that was my fault) I grew a one centimeter stone in three months.


And even though I admit that a chronic kidney stone patient could become addicted to pain meds (because of the nature of the pain treatment) I believe that the pros and cons of addiction to pain relief for a bona fide medical condition need to be weighed up and addiction, or feeding addiction is a small price to pay to make sure a patient is pain free.


If there are any doctors that a reading this and would like to weigh in I would love to hear.  I would also like to take the opportunity to say that I have never been addicted to pain meds.  Whilst I believe some people have a penchant for them, I am the opposite.  I don't like the way they make me feel and when the pain goes away naturally I enjoy seeing the back of them.  I'd also like to add that I have never found myself being denied meds on suspicion I might be a 'drug seeker'.


I'm going to finish with a story from the cystinuria facebook forum.  A doctor told a lady with stone pain that it was similar to mild menstrual cramp and analgesic pain meds weren't required.  Well if that's the case I'm glad I'm not a girl.  Severe cramps must be agony.


Next time I'll get back talking about my SCT.  Until then, stay well:)