You can try looking here for grades on doctors, @Mary Stetler. You can also grade your doctor, clinic, etc. there. Chiros, like doctors, vary a lot. I once found a really good one, but he was quite old and has since retired. His son now runs the clinic, but is nowhere near the healer his old man was.
Does anyone know if the full text of NIH Articles is available to people like me? For as long as I've been reading the Extracts, I have yet to figure out how to get to the full articles. I don't believe the general public can create an account there. Here is an example: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34396766/ edit to add: I'm not in real dire need of a specific article, this is just for my general edification. If NIH articles are a resource that any of us can access, I'm just trying to figure out how.
I used to get the full texts from the University library here. I had to have an account at the library. You may be able to pay for them directly online. If you have a local library that will get them for you, that may work. I would send an email to the librarians with the publication number and they would send me the complete text of the article or whatever electronically. If you open your own account, I think it gets pricey quickly, but if you can do it through a library or non-profit hospital, it may be free to you. Won't hurt to try. Ask at the UVA library and see what they are willing to do for you.
Thank you, Don. It seems that the most complete and in-depth analyses are under the NIH umbrella. My GP is part of the UVA Health System. I don't know if that will get me any pull or not.
Maybe call his nurse or receptionist to find out? My daughter works at a hospital and told me she can get in but I can't. ?????
That's a good idea. It might be worth the cost to register for a class. There are likely other student benefits.
More Nightmares and Maybe A Path Out The bad news is I had another disappointing interaction with my regular urologist on Thursday (“Antibiotics will cause resistant strains, so just flush more often.”) Then Friday morning I had another catastrophic failure…the catheter fully plugged at Day 16 (it had previously plugged at Day 35 and then at Day 25.) The good news is that I actually found a doctor in this practice that I like. I happened to cross paths with him when my cath plugged up again and he had an available emergency spot on his calendar. He not only put me on antibiotics to see if that will clear things up, he actually recommended it! I’m also irrigating the cath daily. The other upside is that the facility he works out of (they have 5 locations) is small, and I had already advance-scheduled my routine cath changes there because their nurse did such a good job last time (I’ve had issues in their other locations.) My new doctor’s personal nurse did the change-out on Friday and she, too, did it right. Unfortunately, I understand that this small office may be a temporary location until repairs elsewhere are completed (Feb 2023) and I’ll lose the ability to choose my nurse, but I’ll cross that bridge later. At least I got started on Nitrofurantoin (at $45/month.) I hope it will be effective. When I saw my [now prior] urologist on Thursday, I requested a 24 hour urine collection analysis (he should have suggested this.) I know that if I'm excreting excess levels of calcium that there are safe & cheap blood pressure meds that will fix it. I just received the kit and will take it in to Lab Corp Tuesday AM when I have blood drawn. My ex-doctor also told me there would be no benefit to getting a kidney guy involved, but I decided otherwise and scheduled an appointment with one the end of December. This will give my new guy tons of data. Because of the potential side effects of long-term Nitrofurantoin use, I’m going to hook up with a pulmonologist and another doctor (my GP?) to monitor my lung & liver functions. I read different things about these risks and the patient population they are likely to impact.
Sorry you had a tough time, @John Brunner but glad you got it resolved to your satisfaction. I hope a nephrologist can give you some clues as to stone/residue formation and how best to prevent it.
I'm on Day 10 of nitrofurantoin but have no way of knowing if it's working or not. I'm on pins & needles trying to make it to Week 4 without a trip to the ER. I've also been flushing every day to see if that will keep the cath clear (yeh, that's an experience.) It's frustrating to read the stories of others in this spot who were disappointed that they were "only" getting to Week 9 before things clogged. I got my urine lab results back and can see why things are as they are. My "stone risk" numbers are off the charts. It's amazing that my kidney stone production actually stopped 20 years ago. Calcium (Ca24) is VERY high 543, the range is <250 Urine pH is alkaline at 7.35, the range is 5.8-6.2 I assume that the calcium is doing this...perhaps it's the bacteria, too. I also gotta think that passing 3.6 liters of water must be diluting it. It should be more acidic to keep the crud down. Calcium/Creatine is 417 and should be 34-196, but think that the high calcium number is driving the ratio Phosphorous is low at 0.517, the range is 0.6-1.2 I started taking lemon juice and citric acid yesterday to keep the sediment in check, but will stop doing that until I talk to my doctor to see how that may be affecting my pH. I read one account of a patient fixing his cath clogging issue solely by adding lemon juice to his diet (he claims the crystals dissolved into non-clogging sludge), but the issue of how increased acid intake affects urine pH (and how that affects sediment) is confusing. I just sent on online note to the practice. "If we need to do a quick talk over the phone to start moving forward, let's do it."
Again it is my opinion that a nephrologist could address this better than a urologist. Your numbers are AWFUL! What is your water source for drinking? Do you drink the mica-laden well water, or have you switched to bottled water for dinking? That could be something to try if you haven't already done so. If you mentioned it in a previous thread entry, I don't recall it.
I think that we have mentioned the well water having so many minerals, and also suggested getting a water distiller, which would give him completely purified water for drinking. At that time, he said that he didn’t want to change anything until he had the tests done ; but now might be a perfect time to look into purifying his drinking water and getting all of that extra minerals out. Plus, he has a water softener, which adds salt and other things to his water, so that is probably even worse than just drinking the plain well water.
The softener would remove calcium. so that should make things better for @John Brunner but it adds sodium and can mess with pH.
Before it gets lost in a sea of text: 1-What would the source of that excess calcium be? I have never been a milk drinker. 2-Is there anything I might consider doing now to get my pH down (or is it OK where it is given my condition?) As a matter of fact, my water is chock-full of mica and I drink a gallon a day. I was unaware that mica might be an issue...I've not read anything about that. When I moved here the unsoftened water brought my stones back in a sand-like structure, but when I retired 8 years ago and put in a softener, I've been drinking close to a gallon a day and those stones have not come back either excreted or detectable via x-ray, so I figured all was well. My groundwater sodium is 18mg/L, and the water is 91mg/L coming out of the softener (I got a before & after full lab test.) I don't think I'm pushing the RDA for sodium of 2,500mg/day too much (less than 350mg in a gallon of water.) There are no measured minerals in my softened water (iron, manganese, sulfate, flouride, nitrate-n, copper), but the Total Dissolved Solids are just above what normal tap water is (344mg/L vs 325mg/L.) I have a 5 micron filter and a sub-1 micron charcoal filter downstream of that. I guess I'll start drinking bottled water and leave the softener installed to save the plumbing. There's no place in this tiny house for a reverse osmosis system, nor would I deplete 10 gallons of well water to get a single gallon of drinking water. I agree about seeing a nephrologist, even though my urologist told me to not bother (same as he said about the urine test.) I have an appointment with one the end of December (should have already been in to see him but his assistant cost me a few weeks due to inattentiveness.) At least my urologist might get me started on HCTZ now to get the calcium issue under control.
Just so it does not get lost in the shuffle, the softener outputs 91mg/L and I drink roughly a gallon a day (probably a little less), so that's under 350mg of sodium per day from my drinking water. It doesn't strike me as high. I'm more concerned what the mica and TSD might be doing.