odd pain in rejected kidney

[Riki]

I've recently started having odd pains in one of my transplanted kidneys.  It's just a small pinching pain, more annoying than most, however, this is the kidney that I received in 1992.  I figured it was dead 10 years ago.  Why would it be causing me pain now?

I'm going to tell the nurses about it on Wednesday, I'm just wondering if anyone else has had anything like this before, or if they had any ideas on what it might be.

[fearless]

could it be a kidney stone?  I'm sure they will know if that's what it is. 

[Riki]

but could a kidney that stopped working about 10 years ago have a stone?  When it was biopsied, back with it was rejecting, I was told that there was so much scar tissue, that they couldn't get any regular tissue to test.

[fearless]

I really don't know, I just thought if some fluid was going through, but not well, it might sit and form a stone.  But that would be diagnosable with a scan.  I'm sure there are many other things it might be.  Hope your doc can help.

It's tough when you have so many different pains to always have to address them with the doc, but I guess that's the only way to find out if it's something you need to address (besides to get rid of the pain)  Pain is a message.

[monrein]

My first (failed) trx went weird, just 2 months after my second (working) trx was installed.  I had a lot of pain, although it started out as milder pain in the area of the trx and it was tough to figure out exactly what was going on...turned out that it was not getting enough blood supply and so it went septic.  They removed it and after a course of antibiotics all was well.  I hope you can find an answer soon Riki.

[Riki]

The pain went away, so I'm not really worried about it... but yeah.. rejected kidneys can be weird.  With my last one, after I'd been on dialysis about 3 years, I started getting really sick.  I had no energy, and got tired really easy.  I used to have to rest while eating.  It took months to figure out what was going on.  It turns out that my rejected kidney was being rejected again.  A couple of weeks on prednisone, and I was back to my old self.

[okarol]

Jenna went through this awhile ago, and even though she is in rejection, the kidney is still functioning, so we were concerned. They did all kinds of labs and ultrasounds, but never found a problem. It went away (seemed to hurt in her native kidneys occasionally too) and so far she's doing ok.

[Riki]

I don't think any of the kidneys I have, and I have 4, are anything more than blobs of scar tissue, so really, I shouldn't have any pain in any of them.  When I was a child on dialysis, I used to get he occasional kidney infection, because my native kidneys still worked a little bit.

[okarol]

We were thinking infection, or kidney stones, or scar tissue. But her labs and 2 full scans revealed nothing. It is a mystery.

[Riki]

I chocked mine up to phantom pain, since it went away, and it was near to where the incisions are.  Where those incisions, and the 2 transplanted kidneys are, I have no feeling, so I really shouldn't have any pain there at all.