Recurrent pain/infections, no apparent cause
Posted: Sun Sep 17, 2017 9:44 am
Hi everyone. I've been having kidney problems for the past 10 months or so which doctors have been unable to diagnose, and I wondered whether anyone else had had similar experience/symptoms.
Background: I'm 33, female, not really a drinker, had a couple of kidney infections in my early 20s that started as UTIs.
Back in December I started having ongoing flank pain - a dull ache that I felt pretty much everyday. It felt like the pain I've had with kidney infections in the past, so I mentioned it to my GP. However I was told it was probably nothing - at the time I was dealing with some other health problems (reflux disease and a neck injury), and I also had ongoing abdominal pain, but the GP focused on the other symptoms, but didn't think it could be a kidney problem (I also had no UTI symptoms).
In March the flank pain increased and I began to feel really unwell. It felt like a kidney infection to me but as I had hadn't classic UTI symptoms (pain when urinating) the GP said it couldn't be a kidney infection. I had a urine test anyway. A couple of weeks later I was feeling increasingly unwell and the GP called me to say that my urine was infected after all and gave me antibiotics. I ended up being hospitalised as I was vomiting and very unwell.
Blood tests showed normal kidney function. Because this was my third kidney infection I was given an ultrasound on my kidney to look for underlying causes, but this came back normal. (That said, the radiologist told me she could see no signs of infection on the ultrasound, so I'm not entirely sure I trust anything she said as infection isn't something you would see on an ultrasound?!). I've been told my ongoing abdominal pain is functional pain, but it also seems to increase when my flank pain increases, so I'm not at all convinced.
I have had ongoing flank pain ever since - so basically since December. This week it has got worse again and I've started to feel unwell so I'm calling the out of hours GP today.
What I'm wondering is, is it possible that I'm getting kidney infections that don't start as UTIs? Would this explain why my urine is infected but I don't have normal UTI symptoms? What might cause this?
Is there something else that could be causing kidney problems that would not be showing up in either my blood test results or an ultrasound?
Background: I'm 33, female, not really a drinker, had a couple of kidney infections in my early 20s that started as UTIs.
Back in December I started having ongoing flank pain - a dull ache that I felt pretty much everyday. It felt like the pain I've had with kidney infections in the past, so I mentioned it to my GP. However I was told it was probably nothing - at the time I was dealing with some other health problems (reflux disease and a neck injury), and I also had ongoing abdominal pain, but the GP focused on the other symptoms, but didn't think it could be a kidney problem (I also had no UTI symptoms).
In March the flank pain increased and I began to feel really unwell. It felt like a kidney infection to me but as I had hadn't classic UTI symptoms (pain when urinating) the GP said it couldn't be a kidney infection. I had a urine test anyway. A couple of weeks later I was feeling increasingly unwell and the GP called me to say that my urine was infected after all and gave me antibiotics. I ended up being hospitalised as I was vomiting and very unwell.
Blood tests showed normal kidney function. Because this was my third kidney infection I was given an ultrasound on my kidney to look for underlying causes, but this came back normal. (That said, the radiologist told me she could see no signs of infection on the ultrasound, so I'm not entirely sure I trust anything she said as infection isn't something you would see on an ultrasound?!). I've been told my ongoing abdominal pain is functional pain, but it also seems to increase when my flank pain increases, so I'm not at all convinced.
I have had ongoing flank pain ever since - so basically since December. This week it has got worse again and I've started to feel unwell so I'm calling the out of hours GP today.
What I'm wondering is, is it possible that I'm getting kidney infections that don't start as UTIs? Would this explain why my urine is infected but I don't have normal UTI symptoms? What might cause this?
Is there something else that could be causing kidney problems that would not be showing up in either my blood test results or an ultrasound?