Saturday, March 07, 2009

Minor Medical Annoyances

I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and my left calf was trying to tie itself in a knot. Ow!

Lately I've also been having a mild pain in one spot on the right side of my abdomen. ("It hurts when I poke it." "So don't poke it!") Thoughts:

1. Gas. (So why is gas hanging out in that one spot?)

2. Kidney stones. (I get those. However, I'm not having any trouble urinating... but perhaps it's because the stone is just hanging out in the kidney, and not causing any blockage.)

3. Appendix. (This one would have me freaking out, but it's only a mild pain.)

Of course, when I looked in my home medical book to see if I could get any answers, I noticed that an awful lot of the diagnoses in the flow chart ended in cancer. (Say it with me in your best Arnie voice: "It's not a tumour!")

So I put the book back on the shelf, and am sticking with gas (or possibly another kidney stone). Perhaps it's the yogurt I've been eating?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Could be muscle pain of some sort if you twisted funny or did something strenuous to that area. That's usually what I chalk things up to when they hurt when pressure is applied but not otherwise. *shrug*

My kidney stone hurt a lot worse than "mildly" and poking had nothing to do with it. ;) But you have more experience with those than I do.

noricum said...

It doesn't seem muscular to me... and it does tend to hurt even when I don't poke it, but it hurts more in a sharp way when I do.

Yeah, kidney stones are the most painful thing I've ever gone through, but I think that the amount of pain they cause depends on their size, and whether they're actually blocking something. I'm wondering if small stones floating around in a kidney (as opposed to blocking the urinary tract) might cause mild pain. I've had several kidney stones already, so that's why I'm wondering if some other ones might exist, but just aren't at the passing stage.

Deneen said...

I've had a 9 mm at the top of my kidney for a year and it causes some pain at the top sometimes. Muscular aches could just be lack of potassium-eat a banana or drink some OJ.

You could have a "blockage" and the yogurt will kinda push it along.

Has nothing to do with the calf pain, but try adding some fiber to your diet to help you move it along.

I stopped WebMD and all the others, always ends with cancer or something that you should run to the ER for.

My husband had a pain like that a few weeks ago, I WebMD'd it and, well, it won't be your appendix if you can fart-does that help?

noricum said...

Well, that rules out the appendix... I've been contributing more than my fair share of methane to global warming lately. ;)

I consume plenty of orange juice (and bananas when I can tolerate it and have been grocery shopping), so my potassium should be fine.

I get oat fibre with my Cheerios, but wheat fibre is an allergy. The broccoli was rather sad yesterday when I went grocery shopping, but I'll see what else I can do about fibre. (Does spinach have fibre? I had a frozen spinach pizza for dinner...)

Alicia said...

Have you tried Ovol? Just in case it's gas? The sell it in all pharmacies.

Anonymous said...

Ovulating?? Not sure of your age, but I started to notice in my 30's that my body had to work harder to spit out those eggs (LOL). Try to track frequency and other related symptoms.

noricum said...

Nope. I'm on the pill to prevent cramps, so ovulating is highly unlikely. ;)