Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night with pain right around where your kidneys are located on my back (like a 6/10 on the pain scale). It lasted all day yesterday and also caused it to feel like my diaphragm had cramps. My first thought was a kidney infection, but I haven't had an urinary urgency, my pee is normal color (no visible blood), odor, etc. I don't have a fever, nausea, or vomiting. It's a constant pain in my back though. It doesn't come in waves. I went to bed last night and just hoped I would wake up and it would be gone. Nope, still here. But, this morning and yesterday morning I had diarrhea. Still no fever and totally normal urine. Could it just be a virus or maybe it is a kidney infection and I just am not showing a lot of symptoms or could it be worse? I feel silly calling my primary to say I have back pain and diarrhea. I feel like she'll tell me it's just a virus or something silly. But if it's something serious, I want it checked, especially with the whole lupus and kidney problem connection. I've never had kidney problems... yet.
Just to be safe I would have it checked out! It could be something serious better safe then sorry I my Motto!
I know from experience that you can have a kidney infection without the typical signs (urgency, blood in urine, etc.) and that it can get out of control really quickly. Best to go get it checked out. Have a great day!
Leaving for the doctor in a few minutes. I'll let you all know what happens. Crossing my fingers they find something!
I have kideny involvment. I know my creatine goes up when I have loose stools which can also lead to kideny pain.
If you tell any doctor you have 6/10 pain in a specific location of unknown origin, they’ll be very glad to have you come in! Also, kidney infections can be sneaky… I once had one without any lower urinary symptoms (though I did have fever/extreme fatigue/body aches) and it went on undiagnosed for almost week while they waited on tests for mono, etc. Who knows, could’ve had an early lupus flare although this was a few years before I was diagnosed, because the fatigue was extreme for a kidney infection and threw them off course.
In any case, even if it is “just a viral thing”, those need to be checked on when you have lupus! I don’t know if you’re on any steroids, but remember those can mask symptoms of infection (especially fever) while making you less able to clear the infection! Plus, even if your body does fight it off it’ll probably cause a flare because of the immune activation… So if your primary will in any way make you feel dumb about wanting to handle it early, you want one that’s more sympathetic and aware of the realities of lupus… But I hear you on the nervousness to be a bother or wasting the copay for something you’ll end up having to just wait out. I’d err on the side of making sure you keep tabs on strange symptoms before they really put you through the ringer, and remember that unexplained, unfamiliar 6/10 pain is concerning to any doc and should be to us too as patients!
Take care, and I hope you get some answers and then some relief!
My urine was normal which was a big relief. She poked my back and had me walking on my tiptoes and heels to see if it was a spinal problem, but that was all normal. But, with the diarrhea and the crampy feeling in my stomach, it's likely a virus and my intestines are just cramping up and making things hurt. Told to just let it run its course, but if it gets worse, go back and see her. She offered me a patch for my back pain, but I told her I'll just use a heating pad and nap. Naps make the world a better place. haha
Thanks for the well wishes and nudge to go to the doctor! I would have worried all weekend if my kidneys were having issues.
Glad you went! Sorry for no answers! At least you can nap with some peace of mind!
Wishing you all the best!
Deenie
Ballerina8876 said:
My urine was normal which was a big relief. She poked my back and had me walking on my tiptoes and heels to see if it was a spinal problem, but that was all normal. But, with the diarrhea and the crampy feeling in my stomach, it’s likely a virus and my intestines are just cramping up and making things hurt. Told to just let it run its course, but if it gets worse, go back and see her. She offered me a patch for my back pain, but I told her I’ll just use a heating pad and nap. Naps make the world a better place. haha
Thanks for the well wishes and nudge to go to the doctor! I would have worried all weekend if my kidneys were having issues.
glad you went to the doc…peace of mind is worth it but I totally understand your apprehension. I’m always second guessing myself. I hope you can rest well thus weekend and this runs its course rapidly. hugs 4 healing! !!~Mare
many kidney problems do not have bladder infection signs so i go see a doctor just in case. Especially if you have insurance....even if not you will stop worrying.
It could be pain radiating from somewhere else so you just never know.
Remember for lupus, that kidney problems often have zero signs why it is so important that your rheum do tests that look specific kidney problems with lupus.
I hope it turns out to be nothing serious...best wishes. Diarrhea kills people daily so it is not as casual as people think plus often it is first sign of other problems...so don't feel silly.
Ballerina,
Do you normally have any kidney problems with your lupus? And is diarrhea/cramping common for you? Based on my reading, experience, and even convos with my first rheumie, SLE often has two different subgroups (unofficial/unrecognized by literature) that I see as “flavors” of SLE. There are specific system groups, like Lupus Nephritis or CNS-NPSLE or pericardial inflammation, with demonstrable damage to those tissues… But what I mean by flavors is two broad symptom groups, as follows… 1) Internal-organ flavor: kidney, heart, lungs, possibly pancreas and liver (kidneys most common of course, but those with one of these may have several others!) 2) Gut-brain flavor (now doesn’t that sound tasty!): GI tract irritability and mobility problems and a variety of nervous system and neuropsychiatric symptoms. Both share the fatigue, arthralgias, skin sensitivity, blood markers, etc that make it SLE, but we’re talking which secondary complications are most prominent and bothersome. Flavor 2 is just beginning to be recognized, since it’s often subtler or harder to detect (though often quite debilitating!), isn’t confirmable by those objective tests we know physicians cling to, etc… And, it’s normally not fatal (lower mortality, yet sometimes higher morbidity.) What’s REALLY interesting to me about these flavor groupings is that they follow ethnic lines! Non-white women (already more likely than white women to have lupus in the first place) and especially men with lupus tend to have flavor 1. White women with lupus and those diagnosed at younger ages tend to have flavor 2. Obviously there is plenty of crossover of those groups, as well as blending of both to some extent in everyone, and variability over the course of illness within one individual, etc. That predictable unpredictability we all know and love… Yeah right!
I personally am heavy on the flavor 2 side (very prominent gut symptoms and difficult brain symptoms, with immaculate kidneys, liver, pleura and pericardium, for which I am so grateful!) Incidentally I am also a white young woman, and of course that is not my supporting data for that trend… It IS actually well-recognized in the literature that non-white women, particularly black women in the US and Europe, have a higher incidence of kidney disease, other internal organ involvement, and higher mortality AND morbidity than white women with lupus. I am so happy that this type of public health research is being done so that resources for intervention can be appropriately deployed! It is my hope that there will be more research into the nature and identification of flavor 2 SLE, since it has received quite a bit less research attention (plus CNS lupus patients are nearly always excluded from clinical trials because of the unpredictable, unquantifiable, wild-card nature of their morbidities! We the IBS, depression, anxiety and potentially psychosis crowd are super prone to being labeled as all-in-the-head cases. Guess what? It IS in our heads because the lupus is at work attacking our brains!!! The diagnostics just suck so they often don’t bother to even look for it or make the diagnosis! (I write a lot on this issue, see my former/locked out profile under “Brynn” for more than what I have under “Faladora”)
Brynn
Ballerina8876 said:
My urine was normal which was a big relief. She poked my back and had me walking on my tiptoes and heels to see if it was a spinal problem, but that was all normal. But, with the diarrhea and the crampy feeling in my stomach, it’s likely a virus and my intestines are just cramping up and making things hurt. Told to just let it run its course, but if it gets worse, go back and see her. She offered me a patch for my back pain, but I told her I’ll just use a heating pad and nap. Naps make the world a better place. haha
Thanks for the well wishes and nudge to go to the doctor! I would have worried all weekend if my kidneys were having issues.