Which ailments currently beplague you - The Bear and Badger

Dinostar77

Guys anyone ever paid for a bupa health check, like a car mot but for your body?

JonB

JonB wrote:

Spent a few hours in hospital tonight. Been having harsh pains in my lower right abdomen occasionally over the last couple of days. Similar thing happened a couple of weeks ago and I put it down to a bit of gas/constipation. Tonight it came back strong and didn't seem to want to go so we headed off. Some blood tests, an x-ray, a drip and an enema (!) later and it seems likely it was down to a bit of gas/constipation. Maybe IBS if it keeps happening. Not quite what I had planned tonight.

In follow up to this from 6 weeks ago, things seemed to be getting better at first, but had more pains again recently. Went for scans today and turns out I have a kidney stone lodged in my bladder canal (or whatever it's called).

Still need to see a doctor to find out what happens next, but whatever it is I think any drinking and overeating plans for Xmas are probably screwed.

Kow

Unfold a paperclip and poke it up yer knob. That should sort it out.

yourfavouriteuncle

Kow wrote:

Unfold a paperclip and poke it up yer knob. That should sort it out.

As a very real and fully qualified doctor of human medical scientific conditions* I fully endorse this course of treatment.

*please note that this may not be true.

JonB

Think it's got a way to go before a paper clip will reach.

g.man

Sounds awful! Get well soon mate.

pantyfire

Dinostar77 wrote:

Guys anyone ever paid for a bupa health check, like a car mot but for your body?

Yes.
I declined the finger up the arse.
Regret it now.

What do you want to know?

Kow

I'm sure you can get a finger up your arse whenever you like.

pantyfire

It might be different for you continentals but here we have brought that type of thing back under British control.

Kow

Only British fingers up your arses, gotcha.

JonB

Got some painkillers now but need to wait till I've eaten to start taking them. So naturally I get a really bad bout of pain just beforehand. Lasted about an hour this time, until it got so bad I finally vomited. That seems to have helped, actually.

Anyway, all I'll say is, if anyone here is thinking about maybe growing a few kidney stones in their spare time, it's not necessarily the fun and games you might expect.

g.man

JonB

The doctor I saw this afternoon said it should pass within a few days if I drink 20 glasses of water a day and jump up and down a lot.

It's not the most cutting edge treatment, but hey, this is Cyprus.

pantyfire

OOoooh I had that about 8 years ago - excruciating pain.
I went to A&E in the end as we didnt know what it was.
They gave me 3 different types of painkiller before one actually worked.
In the end they gave me a muscle relaxant and i think i peed it out.
I didnt feel anything come out, apparently you can if they are big enough.

Dr told me there's several choke points from your kidneys to the bladder and out, most of the time you get them and pass them without knowing as they are tiny but every now and then...

Are you in your early thirties by any chance?

JonB

Early 40s.

So, is that why they call you pantyfire?

pantyfire

Aha late developer.
I was convinced it was gas/stomach ache but on a scale never before encountered.
Dont google image search kidney stones you'll clamp up and it'll never leave.

Can you get muscle relaxant at the pharmacy or some recreational drugs? Is weed a muscle relaxant?

JonB

I can probably get something at the chemist's. Some things are not as restricted here.

Although, the painkiller is supposed to help with that as well, so I'll see how that goes first.

tin_robot

Kidney stones are, supposedly, the worst pain you can have. Though as you've discovered, in most cases the treatment is a small truckload of painkillers, and wait until you manage to pass the stone. (If the stone is really large then they use high frequency soundwaves to smash it up, or sometimes resort to surgery - but I would expect that if yours was of that size, you would have been told about it by now.)

But yeah, it's bloody unpleasant, you have my sympathy.

As for BUPA health checks... They charge a shitload of money, scare the crap out of the people that have had them, and then expect the NHS to pick up the pieces. If you think you need a health check just go and see your GP and ask for one.

[Deleted User]

I cancelled my Bupa subscription at the start of this month. I was paying a shit-tonne of money but, because it was effectively a group scheme through work, which a bunch of folk were apparently abusing, they whacked a £250 excess on the policy.

From the word go they were fast to take my money, but they were never keen to go into much detail about how exactly you went about using them. They’d occasionally give you a telephone number for specifics I didn’t need, but they were keener to send booklets of dense text telling you what they wouldn’t help you with, than a reasonable breakdown of what they would, and how.

It was telling that, in all the time I was seeing my GP about my depression and anxiety, and organising counselling through work, I was never happy with the idea of contacting Bupa to see what they could offer.

I initially signed up with a daft notion that, if I could afford it, I could take some small strain off the NHS. I came to realise that I couldn’t afford it, and I felt happier turning to the NHS if I needed to.

JonB

tin_robot wrote:

Kidney stones are, supposedly, the worst pain you can have. Though as you've discovered, in most cases the treatment is a small truckload of painkillers, and wait until you manage to pass the stone. (If the stone is really large then they use high frequency soundwaves to smash it up, or sometimes resort to surgery - but I would expect that if yours was of that size, you would have been told about it by now.)

@tin_robot Well, I have been told about it now. Got the full report back from the scan and it's 8mm*4mm. A big baby.

Probably not the sort of thing to pass on its own, so I'm going back to the doctor to presumably be prescribed on of the treatments you mentioned. The appointment's on Monday though, so we won't be doing much Christmassing.

acemuzzy

GooberTheHat

That's like a large grain of rice. No way that's getting peed out. :-(

M0stly harm13ss

Jesus good, what sort of mutant GM rice do you eat!

Good luck Jon, hope you can enjoy Xmas, make sure you've got plenty of top draw codine to take the edge off.

[Deleted User]

Yeah, that’s a good bit bigger than a grain of rice.

hylian_elf

It’s about 4 grains or rice.

GooberTheHat

Pusa 1121 is an essentially derived variety evolved through the process of hybridization over a long breeding process. The variety of basmati rice was developed by Padma Shri, Vijay Pal Singh and his student Ashok Kumar Sarial. This variety of rice is known for its extraordinary kernel (grain) length, which can be as much as 8.2 millimetres (0.32 in) for a single grain, the longest-ever known released cultivar in the world.

Shut yer faces.

hylian_elf

I know a grain of rice is 8mm long, but not 4mm wide!!! A grain is about 1mm wide? Hence I was thinking 4 grains.

But JonB said 8x4 so we are missing a dimension anyway. Could be 8x4x4...

GooberTheHat

3mm easy.

Gremill

Everyone in my house is ill at the moment- just in time for Christmas.

Unlikely

I prescribe one rice.

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