Posts by Jerry Phillips3

Douglas King7,

Maybe you could try this—on a day when you feel like your kidney is hurting really badly (or even if it’s just more painful than usual, honestly it doesn't matter, just say it hurts), wait until the evening and head straight to the emergency room at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Once you get to triage, tell them you have terrible back pain and you suspect it’s your kidney. They’ll take you in, run some urine and blood tests, and they might even perform an ultrasound.

From what I’ve experienced personally, and my father did too, I’ve realized that this is probably the most efficient, quickest way to get all those tests done; once you have that ER paperwork proving there was an urgent intervention for a specific reason, they tend to admit you much faster for an ultrasound or any other outpatient testing if they didn't already do it right there in the ER.

I had high blood pressure once, like 160/110, so I went up to the hospital and they ran every test imaginable; they wanted to do a kidney ultrasound too, but I guess there wasn't a doctor available at the time, so I just got my paperwork and ended up getting the ultrasound exactly a month later.

The only frustrating thing is that they still haven't actually found the cause for my high blood pressure, since all my lab results come back perfectly normal.

A few years ago, I went to the Mayo Clinic emergency room because of chest pains—I could barely breathe, actually—and they took me in immediately and ran everything: heart, lungs, kidneys, a full abdominal ultrasound, blood work, and urine, and everything turned out fine, so it was likely just some inflammation in a chest muscle.

I waited an entire month in Cleveland just to get a kidney ultrasound. I finally went up there one day, scheduled everything, and then showed up a month later at Johns Hopkins Hospital where they performed the scan without any issues and gave me the results immediately. I guess I'm not quite sure why you think you'll have to wait nearly that long, though—did you actually go ahead and book the appointment yet? And honestly, I didn't have any special connections or anything to make it happen faster.

It looks just like a standard bandage, really, and when you show up at the urgent care clinic—or whoever it is that actually handles your casting—they just soak the wrap in some kind of solution and wind it around your arm, or leg, I suppose, and then it hardens into what they call a "cast" after a few minutes. It’s usually this beige color, though I think you can find it in navy blue too, and it doesn't look much different from the old-school plaster stuff, except that it's, well, much lighter, and you can actually get it wet without a disaster. They take it off using those specialized medical shears just like the regular stuff, and I guess that's pretty much all there is to it.

I'm not actually from Indianapolis, but I ended up wearing one of those synthetic casts when I broke my arm back in mid-July. It was nice because I could actually shower without making a mess, and honestly, it felt way lighter than the heavy-duty plaster they usually slap on you at the hospital. Anyway, I guess you should just give the local hospital or the ER in Indianapolis a call, and they'll probably point you toward where you can pick up one of those "plastic" casts locally. For my arm, it set me back about $50, though that was maybe three years ago.

I suppose there isn't much you can actually do in terms of correcting the issue. My daughter was diagnosed with the same thing when she was four—an orthopedic doctor literally described her feet as being like elephant feet—and now, after three years, they've almost straightened out on their own. It wasn't even thanks to those inserts, which we only used for a few months, but rather just staying active through sports. I’m seeing the exact same thing with my younger son, so I guess I'll be signing him up for soccer next year, or whatever sport he decides he likes.

As for me, I've dealt with this my whole life, and for thirty-eight years, it never really bothered me until the pains started hitting my hands and shoulders. A physiatrist eventually told me I have scoliosis, which apparently stems from flat feet combined with my desk job. I went through physical therapy, and honestly, after finishing that and sticking to a daily workout routine for two months, the pain has finally subsided and I don't seem to have any issues anymore.

gentlesailor13,

I’m actually quite curious about how your recovery is going and what kind of results you’re seeing. I find myself getting caught up in these thoughts all the time, though it usually just stays at the level of daydreaming, I suppose. At one point, I even managed to get my husband to promise me he'd pay for liposuction once we had our second child. He gave me his word back then, but now that I bring it up again, he just tells me I'm being crazy. My main issue is this stubborn thigh cellulite—the kind that makes my pants fit poorly—which I've dealt with forever, even when I was much thinner. I read somewhere that liposuction, or maybe it's called hydroliposuction now, might be the exact solution for something like that.

I ended up gaining 20 kg during both of my pregnancies. I started at about 155 lbs at 5'9" and finished at around 200 lbs, both times. During my second pregnancy, I really tried to keep the weight down, but whatever progress I made early on just seemed to catch up with me by the end. It feels like my body just doesn't listen to me, no matter how much effort I put in; I guess it just does its own thing 🤷

I suppose you could just grab some sheer pantyhose, maybe a 10 or 15 denier count, and keep them at mid-thigh length or even a bit shorter under a dress, if that's what you're after.

If you browse through the forums on FertilityNation.com, you’ll unfortunately stumble upon hundreds of couples who are dealing with infertility issues themselves. I suppose you'll likely find the answers to your questions there, too.